Acceptance of a dx just takes time, it's a process, just like with everything else. There was a thread quite a while back about acceptance of bipolar and it being like a grieving process. It was a really great thread. I'll try to go back and find it for you.

I questioned my dx for years. I was dx at 17 an I rejected that. I was dx again at 27 and that time I took the dx and treatment but acceptance came a few years later. I think I said this to you in a different thread. About how I feel like its just a shared collection of symptoms ( not sure that makes me have a diseased mind) just that I do have these symptom or ways about me. And that's ok, but rather than focus on that I just focus on what I can do about it.

There are so many people out there who are dx or not not dx with anything that struggle with mental road blocks, dysfunction, learnt unhealthy mental skills , coping ect. And alot of them are working towards becoming a mentally healthier person. I don't really see bipolar as any different. It's a learning process that takes time to fiqure out.

I will say, like Trippin. That the more time I spent at dr appointments, therapists, group therapy.. the more ill I was. I was actively engaging in being a sick person and so I was sick all the time. I'm not saying of course to ditch all that. Finding a balance is important. I feel I was being over medicalized and that wasn't helping my situation. A lot of times we are told that this is a life long illness, and that might be true, but it comes off as a death sentence. I was put on disability and treated like I was mentally incapable for years. It was only when I decided that this was not going to take my life that things got better. Because I started to believe I wa incompetent as well.

There are a lot of things we can do to help ourselves with this outside of the dr's office too. I got a bit lucky with my first pdoc who encouraged me to use mindful meditation and to think outside the box. I've used meditation a lot, yoga also which is a moving meditation. Diet, healthy eating, stay away from alcohol and they like. All these things helped me more than anything did including meds. My perception changed a lot, how I view myself, others, and the world and that made a huge impact on my symptoms. I do believe in the power of mind over matter and that we do have more control than we feel like we do. But we aren't exactly taught that, told that, or shown how.

Again like Trippin said about taking the power back. You know you hear stories of people who were told they would never walk again, and you hear of some that decide that that isn't going to be true, they fiqured out some way to get there and they do walk again. That's a good example that humans can overcome things. I want to be one of those people that's walks again, lives again. I don't want bipolar to steal more from me than it already has so I'm going to take my power back.

That makes it sound easy but it's not. But it's doable, a dx of bipolar doesn't have to steal your life. I know when very depressed that feels like the farthest thing from the truth. But that's depression for you.. Liar of all liars.

Anyways sorry I'm rambling here. I'll go look for that thread.