Bipolar - The Field Has Grown Up

While reading about your Conference, and everything you learned from it....just started making my heart race and the excitement fill my heart.  Not for myself, and those with Bipolar now.  But those in the near and not so near future.  Just think of it, someday someone is going to stand up and say......We finally know and understand the workings of Bipolar.  Now we can make med's with the understanding of how, and why they work.  And if one doesn't work for one, we can make one for those too!

Until these days do come...I am very grateful for being able to take med's that work for me...without the full understanding behind it.

So John my Thanks go out to you, for being able to attend all these Conferences and then coming back and sharing with us.  We are actually starting to see a  light at the end of a very long tunnel...and know that it isn't a train....HOORAY for the generations to come.  If luck holds out, perhaps one day they might even be able to prevent bipolar from even developing.

I also appreciate that you report back what you find and learn.  It is comforting to know that perhaps finally someone out there is starting to look at Bipolar and not just from how a pill might work but how it actually develops.  It is also comforting to know that someone somewhere is looking at the bio-chemical aspect of the illness and not just blaming the "patients" themselves for twisted thinking causing it.

Still, and I know there is a long way to go in this, there is still the seemingly immortal question of "which came first the chicken or the egg?"  Is it the gene/neuron/pathway fritz that causes the atypical reaction and response to life's traumas and/or stresses that may get thrown at the individual OR is it life's trauma's and/or stresses that warp the gene/neuron/pathway fritz that causes the disorder?

Yet, in regards to the future and future generations of those with Bipolar;

there is a light shining on the monster (illness/disorder), even if it is only a small penlight at the moment.  As long as light of some type continues to shine, then perhaps more light will come upon it and as such... that which lives and lies in the darkness will be dealt with and exposed for what it is really composed of. 

At that time, perhaps, in knowing how and what - the folks in the know will know more specifically how to treat it adequately and efficiently.

John,

At some point please expand on the work Dr. Phillips presented and the connections you  made with this knowledge, how it validates specific recovery techniques, or provide a link where you have written about this in more detail.  I too contend that learning about the disorder, introspection--learning about yourself, and recovery skills are key to stability.  It would be interesting to hear what you have come up with.