While I find your perspective to be insightful, I feel like you are doing a disservice to others with mental illness. I have Type II bipolar, and I am certainly prone to poor judgement and borderline delusional thought patterns in an untreated manic episode. However, I am on a medication regimen, that while not perfect, makes me effectively indistinguishable from a "normal" person in day-to-day interactions.
However, categorically suggesting that people should "keep [their] distance" from those with bipolar disorder seems like an extremely destructive message. As another commenter pointed out, there is a spectrum (as with any mental disorder), and I feel like sweeping generalizations of the societal risks of individuals with BP serve to exacerbate the issue of negative stigma surrounding the disease.
At what threshold of treatment efficacy should those with BP be allowed to participate equally and without stigma, in your opinion? Will it require some sort of brain stimulation to address the root cause? genetic engineering to attempt to prevent it? more advanced mood stablizers?
Treatment has progressed substantially from the heavily stigmatized 40s-80s already, and it's not unreasonable to assume that eventually it may become trivial to treat for the majority of cases. Were that to occur, should society still take your cautionary advice about these otherwise high-functioning individuals?
However, categorically suggesting that people should "keep [their] distance" from those with bipolar disorder seems like an extremely destructive message. As another commenter pointed out, there is a spectrum (as with any mental disorder), and I feel like sweeping generalizations of the societal risks of individuals with BP serve to exacerbate the issue of negative stigma surrounding the disease.
At what threshold of treatment efficacy should those with BP be allowed to participate equally and without stigma, in your opinion? Will it require some sort of brain stimulation to address the root cause? genetic engineering to attempt to prevent it? more advanced mood stablizers?
Treatment has progressed substantially from the heavily stigmatized 40s-80s already, and it's not unreasonable to assume that eventually it may become trivial to treat for the majority of cases. Were that to occur, should society still take your cautionary advice about these otherwise high-functioning individuals?