I understand feeling defective and medication being "needed" to alter yourself. Bipolar even though it has colored your life it's not you.

This I'm still trying to learn:

It's a little like needing glasses all of your life then finally getting them in your adult hood. Yes not having glasses have positively and negatively effect your life but it's not you. It does effect your whole life emotionally, socially, and behaviorally because you have learned to cope "without your glasses". Now it's time to unlearn all the coping methods you used. I tend to have high self-esteem but low self-worth.