I had been seeing my therapist for two years when, with a happy smile and a calm disposition, she asked if I had heard of bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder. I remarked that the former was somewhat familiar to me but I wasn't aware of the latter. She said that my diagnosis might be one of them. I reacted very negatively to bipolar because of all the jokes people made about those who have it (example: she's crazy, she must have BP) and because those I knew that did have it were very abusive to the people they cared about. I felt good about BPD though, because of my limited knowledge on it, and she encouraged me to research it when I got home to see how I felt about it.

While I was doing so, I told my best friend about the possible diagnosis of BPD and she flipped out. She said that a majority of those in women prisons had it and many of them had killed people. She sent links. I was petrified of both of these possible diagnoses for months. Especially since my psychiatrist suggested I might have BP around the same time.

Eventually, I just became more "okay" with either. My therapist told me that just because there were people who did bad things and happened to have these disorders didn't mean that I would end up like them. She used my parents as an example and how hard I try to lead my life in a completely different direction than theirs. When I was concerned that I didn't match bipolar all that well, she told me about bipolar type 2, which fits me scarily well. This change in my attitude was also brought on by how well I reacted to mood stabilizers as opposed to antidepressants.

I still work on it everyday. Sometimes it's hard when people I know self-diagnose themselves jokingly ("Geez I'm having a lot of mood swings lately, I must be bipolar!") or when other people describe people they know with my disorder in order to illustrate how upsetting or negative a person is. However, I know that I am educated on the subject and try to use this information and my experiences to help people understand why this is harmful thinking and how they could unknowingly be hurting someone who overhears them.

Staying positive and accepting yourself for who you are is the best way to go about it.