I beat myself up for about 30 years not understanding why I couldn't just pull myself together. There was nothing I could come up with to explain it except to assume that I was hopelessly weak willed or something, as I didn't *have* a dx (can we all say, "swept under the rug"? The symptoms were there, no doubt about it, but being surrounded by this attitude only made me more convinced that it just must be me being to blame). The dx explained a lot and was a relief actually. A point from which to understand that it wasn't simply some kind of personal failure. In terms of answering "fine", I am very often lying then. I simply can't deal with running into the same attitude from people that I had all those years. Soooo, I feel like a fraud because I simply cannot admit to others just how very bad it is. Also, because of the cyclical nature of BP, there are times when things are going pretty ok. At those times I delude myself into thinking, "maybe it won't happen again". I know it isn't true, but I wish it with all my heart. This morphs into, "well, maybe I don't really have it...". You guessed it. That doesn't last long at all before it gives me a big time reality smack down. Again. And again and again and again. But I think the biggest one is that BP is exhausting all by itself. Because so many people don't understand just how real it is, ie. they think it's "fraudulent" or an excuse or something -- they are only too happy to try to convince you its very existence is fraudulent... combine that with personally wishing it *weren't* so and not having the energy to fight to misconceptions.... yeah.