title: Nervous System: Or Losing My Mind in Literature
author: jan-lars-jensen
description: Within the literature of madness, there has never been a memoir as wrenching and mordantly humorous as Jan Lars Jensens Nervous System. A quiet librarian who struck publishing gold with his first novel, Jensen felt as if something had come unhinged in his mind. The rush of ideas and language felt like losing, willy-nilly, a chunk of his mental stability. But true madness didnt come until the countdown to his books release into the world.
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  Note on "The Cross of Carl"
  
  During the years 1916 and 1917 the writer was prevented from taking active
  part in the war by a physical affliction accompanied by severe pain which
  induced him to take quantities of opium as a sedative. In the first half of
  1917 his mind became increasingly preoccupied with the moral and spiritual
  issues of the conflict. He suffered from attacks of melancholia which
  culminated in emotional crises. For some time these crises were confined to
  the chaotic nervous aberrations classified as hysteria by neurologists. But
  towards the end of the month of June, 1917, he observed that the termination
  of the nervous paroxysm marked the commencement of a third phase. The general
  characteristics of this third phase were in complete opposition to those of
  the preceding condition. There was a great sense of well-being, of peace,
  poise and power. The mind was exceptionally lucid and alert. Physical
  discomfort and disabiliti