Randy Revelle

• Revelle was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1977, while serving on the Seattle City Council. He later spoke openly about the diagnosis, including during his political career, and became a public advocate on mental-health issues. [6][2][3]

• In 1977, while serving on the Seattle City Council, Revelle experienced several weeks of psychotic episodes. He later described becoming unable to speak coherently after a trip to Washington, D.C., believing that neighborhood dogs were wolves threatening his children, and nearly stepping off a ferry. During another episode, he swung a fireplace poker and nearly struck his children. [6][2][5]
• Revelle also described the difficulty his family had obtaining psychiatric hospitalization because his health insurance did not cover inpatient mental-health treatment. His father ultimately pressured the hospital to admit him, and the admission was recorded under a physical diagnosis so that insurance would cover it. [6][4][5]

• After being hospitalized in 1977, Revelle was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and prescribed lithium. He said the medication worked quickly, and decades later he was still taking it to manage the illness. [4][5]

• Revelle said in 2007 that he had not experienced another manic episode since his illness in 1977. He was subsequently elected King County Executive and continued a long career in public service and health-care policy. [7][1]

• Revelle became a leading advocate for equal insurance coverage of mental and physical illnesses. As chair of the Washington Coalition for Insurance Parity, he helped lead a statewide coalition that successfully pushed for Washington state’s mental-health parity law, enacted in 2005. [8][3][1]
• He frequently used his own experience with bipolar disorder and insurance barriers to argue that mental illnesses should be treated like other medical conditions. He continued working to expand the parity law after its passage. [8][3]

“It took me two months to get over my mental illness, and it took four years to get over the stigma.”

— Randy Revelle [4]