Preface of Fly Me to the Moon

       As a psychiatrist with thirty-three years in private practice and clinical research, I have treated in excess of one thousand patients with Bipolar Disorder (formerly Manic Depressive Illness). My patients and their families have frequently asked for a book to help them understand Bipolar Disorder. In assessing their response to the several notable good published books, I have, unfortunately, not been able to obtain a patient consensus on a favorite book to recommend. Fly Me to the Moon: Bipolar Journey through Mania and Depression is my offering to fill that
need. There are three million persons in the U.S. alone who have the bipolar gene. Millions more including their family members, friends, close associates or co-workers also need to understand the illness.

       Treating patients with Bipolar Disorder has been a passion of mine throughout my thirty-three years in psychiatry. It is tremendously gratifying to be part of a patient’s conquest of a raging destructive beast within. It is rewards such as this that keep doctors in the practice of medicine despite expanding hardships and difficulties.

       Imagine being untrained and placed on a wild stallion and forced to ride it until it is tamed. The beast of Bipolar Disorder has stallion-like power, stubbornness and endurance. Without appropriate help one could be exhausted, maimed or dead before the beast is subdued. The same dangers are present in a person with Bipolar Disorder.

       Fortunately, treatment options have dramatically improved, and many lives are now saved and afforded the opportunity to live and enjoy reasonably normal lives.

       Eileen is a remarkable character who carries the bipolar story phenomenally well. She interacts with the powerful and influential effortlessly. With the less fortunate she displays equal warmth and grace.

       Eileen’s co-characters are a host of real people interacting with fictional characters to weave a novel of interest, intrigue, suspense, and romance in which she faces life and death struggles, deceit, corporate greed, and bias. Eileen’s Bipolar symptomatology characteristically promotes vicissitudes which a professional woman with mental illness might expect.

       Eileen’s story provides the reader with an enjoyable novel while providing substantial understanding of Bipolar Disorder and the day-to-day struggles of patients with Bipolar Disorder and their families.