Just Enough Madness
A Memoir by Allen M. Kittrell
What happens when the thing you thought was your greatest strength turns out to be something you never understood?
Just Enough Madness is Allen Kittrell's candid journey through bipolar disorder, depression, survival, and a life filled with unexpected turns.
A life that never followed the script.
Allen Kittrell spent much of his life trying to understand the strange intensity of his own experiences.
There were moments of extraordinary energy, moments of profound darkness, and plenty of experiences in between that seemed impossible to explain.
Written as a cathartic process toward mental health, Just Enough Madness looks back at the people, places, careers, choices, highs, lows, and unexpected detours that shaped Allen's life.
It's not a story about having all the answers.
It's a story about finally asking the right questions.
Gymnastics. Emergency calls. Theater. Depression. Discovery.
Allen's story moves through a life that refuses to fit neatly into one box.
GYMNASTICS
Discipline. Adrenaline. Movement.
EMT
Other people's emergencies.
THEATER
Characters, stages, and another way to escape.
LIFE
The parts that didn't fit neatly anywhere.
DISCOVERY
Understanding what had been there all along.
Maybe understanding yourself changes the story you've been telling all along.
For years, Allen believed he simply experienced the world differently. Looking back, he began to see patterns.
- The energy.
- The darkness
- The impulsiveness
- The resilience
- The chaos
And the moments of unexpected brilliance.
Just Enough Madness is an attempt to put those pieces together, not to romanticize mental illness, but to understand the person who lived through it.
I thought I had a superpower.
Until I learned what it really was.
— Allen M. Kittrell
It's about the parts of ourselves we don't always know how to explain.
MENTAL HEALTH
An honest look at bipolar disorder, depression, and the long road toward understanding.
SURVIVAL
The strange, exhausting, sometimes hilarious ways people find to keep moving forward.
IDENTITY
What happens when the version of yourself you've always known begins to change.
ACCEPTANCE
Learning that understanding your differences doesn't have to mean losing what makes you unique.
Why I wrote this book
I didn't write this book because I had everything figured out.
I wrote it because I didn't.
For much of my life, I experienced things I couldn't quite explain. Some were exhilarating. Some were devastating. Many were simply strange.
Writing became a way to look back at those experiences without running from them.
Just Enough Madness is the result, a collection of memories, realizations, mistakes, adventures, and uncomfortable truths that helped me understand myself a little better.
If these pages make someone laugh, think, recognize themselves, or feel a little less alone, then telling the story was worth it.
ALLEN M. KITTRELL
Anyone who's ever wondered, “Why am I like this?”
You don't need to have lived Allen's life to recognize something familiar in it.
Just Enough Madness is for people navigating mental health, people trying to understand someone they love, people carrying stories they haven't yet told, and anyone who's ever felt like they didn't quite fit inside the definition of “normal.”
Read a few pages before you take the whole journey.
Get a glimpse inside Just Enough Madness and discover Allen's voice, humor, honesty, and unmistakably unconventional story.
Open the book. Enter the madness.
A strange life. An honest story. And just enough madness to make it interesting.