Mandrec, when the conversation got serious at first, I should have said to you what I
often do now, that bipolar illness is not a static illness; it is a dynamic one and changes
often from day to day. It is never all this or all that.

One has to understand that black-or-white, all-or-nothing ways of seeing things are usually
the thinking techniques of alcoholics who must learn somewhere along the way to
their remissison that it may be best to see things in shades of gray.

I hope you understand that psychiatrists often have difficulty themselves diagnosing
correctly when patients present with other symptoms that challenge strongly their
ability to diagnose correctly. My own psychiatrist confirmed this to me a couple of
months ago. (We happened to be talking about the alcoholic who sees things as
"all black or all white" or "all or nothing".)

Just remember: it's a dynamic illness, please.

One question a psychiatrist will often ask is "how long has this been going on"? That may
(although I don't know that as a fact) enable him/her to determine whether the situation is
fixed and unchanging or rare and dissipated relatively quickly. Things of that sort could
help with an accurate diagnosis.