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Thanks for a useful set of links. Kaye Redfield Jamison in her An Unquiet Mind, says

"I have often asked myself whether, given the choice, I would choose to have manic-depressive illness. If lithium were not available to me, or didn't work for me, the answer would be a simple no... and it would be an answer laced with terror. But lithium does work for me, and therefore I can afford to pose the question. Strangely enough, I think I would choose to have it. It's complicated... I honestly believe that as a result of it I have felt more things, more deeply; had more experiences, more intensely; loved more, and have been more loved; laughed more often for having cried more often; appreciated more the springs, for all the winters... Depressed, I have crawled on my hands and knees in order to get across a room and have done it for month after month. But normal or manic I have run faster, thought faster, and loved faster than most I know."

There's an interesting parallel here to Temple Grandin, writing about her own experiences with autism. Yes, there are pontential problems but also potential virtues. Maybe the key here is to stop thinking about bi-polar disorder or autism (or .... etc) as in themselves "illnesses" and start thinking instead about what potentials (positive and negative) are associated with particular kinds of human variation and how to help people nake the most of those?

That, of course, sounds a lot like life in general, for everyone. Along those lines, maybe its worth also keeping in mind that life itself "really does kill people"?