What ultramar said ^^.

It took me what seemed like forever to "get" the difference between what was the bipolar, and what was just me.

First, I had to get stabilized, and just doing that took over a year. Then recently I've been very hard hit with my husband's cancer and my career ending, and now I FINALLY understand that my current emotional state has everything to do with what's going on in my life, and nothing whatsoever to do with the BP.

What I'm experiencing are normal, even healthy reactions to the cluster-F that life's thrown at me---I think people would be more justified in worrying about me if I WEREN'T anxious, teary, scared, even a little depressed. I haven't even called my pdoc, even though I've gone a little too long between appointments this time, because there's really nothing to report. Who goes to the doctor when they aren't sick? (Well, I do usually see my pdoc every 4 weeks or so, but I'm watching money pretty closely since I don't have insurance, so I haven't been in for almost two months.)

Anyway, like we discussed in another thread, BP doesn't usually manifest itself in multiple ups-and-downs throughout a given day which are almost always triggered by external events. I'm not even sure how an 'ultradian' cycling pattern is distinguishable from borderline PD mood reactivity. But then, they don't pay me the big bucks to figure these things out, do they?