Question For Consumers: What is respect? When you say that you want our respect, what are you asking for?

A Consumer’s Answer: Professionals, bipolars think and feel just the same as you do. Our minds are not weird or scary. Being manic is not about thinking and feeling differently; it’s about thinking and feeling for too long. When we are manic, we are unable to let go of our anger or worries as quickly as you can. When manic, we may be unable to drift off to sleep or to stay asleep all night. Our frightened — not frightening — thoughts repeat themselves over and over in our minds, and all we can do about it is take mood stabilizers and wait.

Please do not fear us. We are much more frightened than you are. We feel angry, but our anger, like our depressive hopelessness, is based on fear. Knock down our loud, self-righteous defenses and — surprise! — you will find insecure children hiding behind them. Knock down our grandiose protestations and you will discover people who feel that we are worthless and, as a result, desperately need respect.

True respect sees our fears without denigrating them. True respect sees our illness without pitying us. True respect does not depend on whether its object has a Ph.D. or has bipolar disorder, is a corporate owner or a ditch-digger, is rich or poor. All human beings deserve an equal measure of respect.

The hardcopy book, Learning Through Literature, goes even deeper into the concept of respect and reveals some more specific respectful behaviors that consumers would like to see in professionals.