RC: When I got sick, it was a choice of the attic bedroom and the state mental hospital. That was all that was available.

JS: Well, look at me. I'm a partial generation younger than you. After I got sick and finally got to the hospital in 1988, they treated me with lithium and it didn't work... And then they added in tegretol. I will say this threw my parents for a loop because there was a 60% chance that the combination of lithium and tegretol would work for my bipolar disorder, but up to a 40% chance that it wouldn't. And that was all they had. Those were the only medications, just 20 years ago. If we look today at all the combinations of medications available to somebody that has their first break with a bipolar disorder, we find they have many options. Let's be very clear. None of these medications is perfect. There are side effects, but compared to psychosis, it's a no-brainer. The medications now are light years ahead of where they were 20 years ago.

RC: I had a bad psychotic break when I was in graduate school. It started a year earlier when I was put on a medication that wasn't effective for me and that was noted for its side affects. I just couldn't handle the terrible side effects. To me it seems counterintuitive, but these medicines have such different affects on different people. It's something I don't think the general public understands.

JS: For whatever reason, unfortunately, it's not like a headache. Take an aspirin. I think in layman's terms, each of our brain chemistries are so different that different medicines effect different people in different ways.

I think we should also appreciate that it's not that easy for a lot of people including ones that get treatment. They don't have coverage of their symptoms and I especially think of the ones that get no treatment. Just to spew out the advocacy facts that I use with committees - We're talking 200,000 people with [untreated] mental illness who are homeless [or one-third of the estimated 600,000 homeless population] and 300,000 in jails and prisons [about 16% of the total jail and prison inmate population]. In the general population, about 1 in 100 has schizophrenia and 1 in 100 has bipolar disorder.] That's partially because we don't have perfect medications yet. But I think just as important, a lot of people that need medications don't get them. And that's partly what we [at the TAC] try to address, whether it's doing court ordered out-patient commitment or getting to those people in crisis, but it's all for a lack of systems that are reaching out and getting them care.