Ah, that was me .

And I think the real issue here is not being articulated. I'll make an attempt.

OP seems to be questioning the foundations of "bipolar disorder" and later the implications of what it means to hear, "you have a psychiatric illness". This is something that is difficult to do once you've accepted and internalized the medical view of "bipolar disorder" and from what I can understand, as someone who also questions this perspective, is that the medical view must be accepted for it to really work in some peoples lives. I've observed, not in this thread alone, that many who accept this perspective take questions as personal attack, much like patriotism or religion.

Some terms like "personality" were used which confused the issue for those all too familiar and ingrained with the "academic" understanding of the words too.

It's like you're talking about the same thing but on two different plains.