You're very sensitive KristieMarie, and that's a characteristic of many bipolar patients. It goes with the territory, but you'll feel more and more at ease the longer you live with it. (It's also a sign of the giftedness of the illness.)

I mean, after all, you're one of the 7% of all bipolars in the world who get treatment and have the opportunity to live a content and productive life. The other 93% of bipolar patients never seek help at all--not that it's something to be proud of; it's just a fact, and many probably never even know that they have a chemical imbalance.

Often, there is real talent that attends bipolar illness, especially in the arts. After you feel stabilized, you might investigate to see if you have any special talents that seem to call to you to involve yourself in that field. It can be very rewarding.

You must remember that you have a mood disorder, not an intellectual disorder, and bipolar patients can be very intelligent, often in the field of their giftedness.

You obviously had a little bit of shame about your diagnosis. Discard that, please. There's nothing to be ashamed about, and most well-educated people have enough knowledge about the illness that they would be embarrassed for themselves if they ever harbored a bad feeling because you had an illness. I hope that any stigma
is rapidly going out of style as knowledge leads the general population to know more about the illness and its good response to proper medication to treat a chemical imbalance, or firing of the brain too rapidly in a certain area, or endocrine problems.

I see it as no more significant than wearing a pacemaker, hearing aids, artificial heart, or being allergic to pet dander or peanuts.

Don't you know that everyone has something that makes him/her special in life and that there's no such thing as really "normal"? (I prefer to call all others the "general population".)

So cheer up and wear your self-respect honorably and with attention to your deepest principles. You cannot go wrong living with that attitude, in my belief.