I believe that the more I read about bp, the more accepting of it as a disease I had and ALWAYS have I became.

Imagine what it felt like back in 1987 when the doctors told me I had a disease (major depression - a misdiagnosis) that I would take medicine for for about six months, go to some therapy and then could stop taking the medicine and be fine. Well, six months came and went, then twelve months, then eighteen months and I WASN'T anything near fine. What had I done wrong? I kept asking myself. So, I began reading everything I could find on depression and really began believing that it was a disease that was not going to go away in my case and was genetic in my case and I was going to have to take medications all my life.....in my case! I told the doctors that and they still didn't entirely agree with me. It wasn't to be proven out until it was proven out....some twenty years later when I was correctly diagnosed as bipolar.

I think because other people don't believe in our illnesses, it's easy for us to convince ourselves that we are frauds. The world supports that. Don't believe it for a minute, sweety. Our illnesses are real. So real, some people die because of them. How much more real do you need to get?