It took a long time for me to accept the diagnoses of this illness, I felt like an outcast.

I went from being healthy and on no medicine at all to a trial and error of many, many different meds. Now I just take a mood stabilizer and an anti-depressant along with
Xanax and sleeping pills PRN.

I had and still do struggle with who I should confide in about this illness, but the people I did risk telling were very understanding and accepting- they didn't judge me.

What got me to finally really and truly take this seriously was when I stopped taking my medicine and with a combination of that and pain pills, I was incoherent within 9 days and wound up hospitalized for a week.

What helps me, is complying with my medicine, keeping my doctor's appointments, trying to live a healthy lifestyle and realizing that "everybody has something"
I agree with the others above- we are not bipolar, its not our idenity, we have bipoalar disorder.