Moderately abled

Here's something I found interesting: "Bipolar disorder is responsible for the loss of more disability-adjusted life-years than all forms of cancer or major neurologic conditions such as epilepsy and Alzheimer's disease, primarily because of its early onset and chronicity across the life span."

I know my mom hasn't worked in 14 years, and probably never will again, even though she's otherwise perfectly capable of working. Unfortunately, she gets really manic or paranoid and runs herself out of a job within 6 months. There seems to be a theme online, too, that the Twitterers and bloggers are all writers for a living. Is it because we bipolars don't play well with others? Are we hard to work with? Who knows, but we do have higher disability rates than others, apparently.