[hellbender]

I knew a very bright medical student who was manic at the time I saw him. He was an absolutely classic textbook case of mania: talked nonstop, lacked inhibitions, was very extroverted. However, bipolar is now being overdiagnosed today. Many people who are not classic bipolars are being called bipolar and drugged accordingly, including kids.

Incidentally, do you have any bipolar relatives? Bipolar illness seems to have a strong hereditary component.

[Winstons Julia]

I kind of came out and then retreated....because often when you admit these things, people will come out of the woodwork to attack you.

Especially as a Republican...who is out now, as someone who lives with mental illness, there are many on the other side who would say, “I knew it!”

Which is why I take offense and get peeved when either side throws the “crazy” label around.

I won twice on Jeopardy.

I have a different kind of brain and I’m not bragging.

It’s just a fact of life. I read voraciously and remember what I read.

I am too young to know for sure if there were others in the family with this...but I would bet that my grandfather had issues. He became a millionaire after being a kid who lost his mom at 13 and had to live with his sister because his father was a mess. He was a drinker. I just learned recently that he had a sister no one talked about because she died in a mental institution.

My mother’s side has depression.

That’s all I know. But I also have close family that are brilliant at one thing or another despite not necessarily being educated formally.