A Primer on Depression and Bipolar Disorder

II. MOOD DISORDERS AS PHYSICAL ILLNESSES

I. Hope

In this short discussion, it has been impossible to touch on many facets of mental illness. But I think I have told you enough for you to have at least some kind of picture of what is involved in terms of disruption, pain, and loss in human lives from these terrible diseases.

I would like to close this pamphlet on a note of hope. While some people with mood disorders are refractory (i.e. don't respond well to treatment), an ever-increasing fraction do respond as the spectrum of available medications widens. Furthermore, a great deal of progress on finding the root mechanisms of depression and bipolar disorder is being made through medical research. Every year, important new insights are gained and occasionally we make a breakthrough. There is every reason to believe that these programs, adequately supported, will continue to make significant progress, and eventually lead to very effective therapies, possibly even real cures.

The remark about "adequately supported" is key. Here NAMI has provided a very effective focus for both private funding through its research "sibling" NARSAD (National Association for Research on Schizophrenia and Affective Disorders), and by lobbying continuously for increased federal support of NIMH (National Institutes for Mental Health) and NIH (National Institutes for Health).

One other area should be mentioned: legislation affecting those who are CMI (Chronically Mentally Ill). For too long, the problems of chronic mental illness have been kept in a locked closet. But that is changing as both victims and their families and friends see that effective treatment is now possible, while all too often finding, at the same time, that their access to those treatments is thwarted by arbitrary administrative rules, or simple lack of publicly supported facilities. In today's world this state of affairs is no longer acceptable. Coherent, effective efforts are needed to change laws that discriminate unjustly against the chronically mentally ill, and to develop new legislation that will (finally!) provide the services actually required to meet their needs. Again, NAMI and NDMDA (the National Depressive and Manic-Depressive Association) and their state and local affiliates are leading the way.

J. Organizations

I urge everyone who is interested in eliminating the mood disorders and other mental illnesses to join NAMI and NDMDA. Information about state and local chapters of NAMI and NDMDA can be obtained from their national headquarters.

National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI)
Wilson Boulevard
Suite 302
Arlington, VA 22201
(703) 524-7600

National Depressive and Manic-Depressive Association (NDMDA)
N. Franklin Street
Suite 501
Chicago, IL 60610

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