I know how hard it is to go through the learning phase of being diagnosed but, I personally am grateful for the ebb and flow of being bi-polar. I have experienced in my 36 years the emotional energy of what most people would only see in three life times. It used to almost cripple me but now, I embrace it. It fuels my writing, music. It's like living in a harsh and cold winter landscape and then going to death valley. It's like basking in the warmth of a hot summers day or curling up under a warm blanket and forgetting the world exists for a while. I have learned to not fear it as much. Sometimes the places my mind goes can be frightening and my life can swallow me up like a surfer in a storm surge but I always seem to come back to the surface.

On a side note, treatment and balance in dealing with bi-polar disorder can take a while to get figured out. For me the first two years were almost worse then my life prior to diagnosis. I read to educate myself and got lost in all the scary stuff I read about it. I felt like if I were bi-polar I was damned to a life of unbalance and that I had no chance at a life of quality. But if you follow through you will get better and more importantly come to terms with it. You're not alone. We are here and reach out if you need to to whoever you have and if you want to us.