People with mental illness have various levels of functioning. Sometimes a good day is when you talk in your group therapy session at the psych ward. Sometimes a good day is getting out of bed. Sometimes a good day is going to the doctor. And sometimes a good day is giving successful presentation to a bunch of executives. It varies from person to person. And while anyone can tell you to “take your meds,” that doesn’t really tell you how to get from non-functional to functional. It’s true no one has the exact answer, 33 high-functioning people with bipolar disorder identified six things that keep them moving forward.

In the times when I've had prolonged periods of wellness, I don't particularly think about bipolar disorder and I don't feel its implications. I just get up, get out of bed, say 'hi' to my cats, and go about my day. True, the med-taking is a reminder, but bipolar isn't necessarily top-of-mind. This does not mean, however, that I can forget about the bipolar disorder. Forgetting about bipolar disorder is one of the most dangerous things you can do.

Some people believe that being crazy makes you creative (perhaps brilliant) and being creative makes you crazy. Similarly, along this line of logic is that taking medication makes you uncreative and perhaps, un-brilliant. Well, pish-tosh I say.

Many of us with a mental illness have tried to “power through” it. We have tried to muscle through the pain without getting help of any kind. Most of us don’t want to admit we need help. Most of us don’t even want to admit we’re sick. We think that we’ll be fine without doctors and therapists and pills. We think that they are the enemy. We think we’re better off without them. We are so ridiculously wrong.

I know that as a semi-public person with bipolar disorder I am supposed to beam hope. I am supposed to remind people of it, write about it, speak about it, and give it to everyone wrapped in a shiny happy wrapper. I don’t do this. There is, without doubt, hope to be had, out there in the bipolar treatment world, but that doesn’t mean I particularly feel too strongly about it personally.

Bipolar disorder, by its very nature, is not routine. People become manic unexpectedly and people get depressed unexpectedly. And during depression or mania, people become even more erratic in all areas of their lives. So if bipolar disorder exists outside of a routine, what would happen if routine were applied to bipolar disorder?

I mentioned what remission means for a mental illness in a clinical setting: reduction in specific, empirical symptoms by a given amount. In other words, you are given a depression “score” and remission means reducing that score by a given number. But does that number mean anything at all to the patient in question? If you achieved it, are you "better"? If you suffer from mental illness, what does remission really mean?