I think I've had this for a long, long time but undiagnosed. I mean, since childhood. I have memories of believing things to my core that when I look back at them makes me sad, because they have that resonance of psychosis. Such as when I was 8 years old I was afraid to use the bathroom in my house because I honestly believed my classmates had installed closed circuite surveillance system there so that they could make fun of me. I remember sitting in the bathroom and hidding myself with towles and looking in all the corners for signs of the "hidden cameras."

I don't consider myself "crazy." I don't like that word. But I do consider it a mental illness. I don't like "mood disorder." Because it isn't just a "bad mood/happy mood." I do believe it is genetic, there are varying degress, and it is a phsyical, chemical disorder of the brain and nervous system. It isn't our fault that we have this and it doesn't make us less of people because we have it. Just like having diabetes or thyroid troubles, or any other chemically imbalanced body disorder makes people less of people...

I also agree with cocoabeans. I am not bipolar. I have bipolar, and I experience it and have to live with it. But it isn't who I am.