"...I Found My Friends, They're In My Head."

Ever since the first day we looked at the periodic table, I've had a question.  "What is it about lithium that inspired a hit Nirvana song?" It's in beautiful irony that in my last blog post about my book, I found the answer.  Robert Lowell is a classic poet.  Everyone at the time agreed he was a bit mad.  He thought he was the Virgin Mary one day and tried to stop traffic on a highway the next. He moved all over and left a fiance to go after his poetic dreams.  He was going through manic highs and lows because of a chemical imbalance in his brain.  Pharmacists came up with lithium carbonate supplements to help people with this problem.  It doesn't cure the high or low, but it prevents the next spell from happening.  It also helps fix people's circadian clock.  Normal people function in a 24 hour day, but bipolar people don't.  They can go forever on a high, when their brains are alight with hyperactivity.  Afterwards, however, they crash into a hard depression.  Lowell immediately benefited from the tablets.  From his new perspective, he realized how he had messed up in his heightened states.  His poetry took a more frank, realistic turn.  Over time, it became dull and almost lifeless.  Other people who took lithium admitted that they felt like they were tranquilized while on it and Lowell's friends noted that he looked changed, in a bad way.  His later work is rarely read because of the lack of life it holds.