Originally I only told partner, family, and 1 close friend near home, 1 at work. I wanted to tell my boss since i was having issues when first diagnosed and getting on meds and missed a lot of work. I told her it was a medication issue, etc. so that she would interpret it as being related to the migraines I had been having.

Then I hit a bad day (being laid off) and as a bunch of us from work drowned our sorrows in beer, I told a few of my closest (work) friends. That included some drunk texts to old friends to tell them too so the whole night was NOT a wise move.

When I was having a conversation with the friend near home that I told, he said something like "well I wouldn't want to take your advice because your crazy." The statement sounds bad, but in the context of our relationship, the crazy label wasn't bad (dark humor is my style). The problem was that I really think he thought that bp made me ignorant or illogical. I guess it could at times, though. I guess I was more upset that he doesn't understand the condition (despite many conversations to try to educate him) and was making an ignorant judgement.

I had a breakdown at work the other day as the end employment for so many of us is drawing near. I meant to just talk to my new boss to try to figure out how much longer I will be working and I just broke down. He was so nice!!!! Neither of us said specfic dx, but he mentioned things like needing to keep on meds consitenly "because the withdrawl symptoms suck," that he specifically set up meetings for the morning to force himself to get out of bed otherwise he would stay there until 2pm... etc. I was soooo relieved that he at least had some understanding of mental illness.

I feel like I was lucky that some people understood; most seemed indifferent, only one asked for more information about it to understand, but there were still the ones who just don't get it.

Sometimes I happy that people know so that if I am hiding under my bed for days they would help; but I do feel self conscious sometimes.