In 1995, Marcia Lawrence was a vibrant and accomplished 49-year-old. An educator, she had written books and hosted TV and radio shows. But one afternoon, without any warning, she descended into a seventeen-day pyschotic hell that changed her life. She found herself tormented by bizarre hallucinations. "Had it not been for a loving rescue by friends, an artful diagnosis, my own perserverance, and an incredible amount of luck, " she says, "I doubt that I would have survived." As Lawrence discovered, she had suffered from estrogen deprivation, a debilitating disease for women who react negatively to the gradual decline of estrogen during the perimenopause-which can begin as early as a woman's mid-thirties-producing symptoms that can range anywhere from occasional hot flashes to debilitating psychiatric illness. Lawrence reveals that those women who suffer from estrogen loss are most often misdiagnosed. Instead of the estrogen replacement therapy that they so desperately need, these women are routinely referred to psychiatrists where they are given psychoactive drugs or are even institutionalized. "Menopause and Madness" examines vital new information that will alert women to the unique symptoms of this perimenopausal psychiatric illness and ease the way for the millions of women now approaching their own mid-lives.