Here's a national spelling bee champion with bipolar disorder (who I know personally, which is why I know this).
"Nevertheless, it took Pennington nine years to get his postgraduate degrees at the University of California-Berkeley. During that period, he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which he believes may have prolonged his academic quest. "That was one thing I didn't even know about myself when I was in the National Spelling Bee," he says. "I'm generally quite open about it. It shows that many people with bipolar disorder are high functioning professional members of society. I do all the things I need to do to keep it in check. I keep healthy, take the right medicines and try to live right. I guess we all have our crosses to bear, everybody's got their 'something.'"
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1624100_1624098_1623359,00.html #ixzz2WhvItcHR
