It's taken a long time, but now that I've been stable for a couple of months, I've finally had the chance to figure out some of "what's me and what's my disorder". Like when I was going through all the agony of my husband's cancer diagnosis and the anticipation of losing him, my underlying mood was stable, and I was only reacting the way anyone would under the circumstances. The best part was that I recognized it for what it was, and didn't worry about whether I was going into a new mood episode.

I can't believe how awesome it is to wake up in the morning and NOT have to do an instant gut-check: "OK, what kind of mood am I in today?" The flip side, of course, is that I might not realize when an episode is on the horizon, but at least now I'm getting an idea of what the 'normal' ups and downs of life are.

I think my family tends to attribute all of my "bad" behaviors to my BP far more than I do. If I'm irritated because I've had a tough day and somebody cut me off in traffic, or if I start biting people's heads off because they're annoying the hell out of me, they say things like "Did you take your meds today?" Drives me up the wall.