Are you accepting of your diagnosis?
Yes, but there are times I reject being bipolar. As I'm sure most of us do from time to time.

How old were you when diagnosed?
Well, I was diagnosed with ADHD around age 10. But my parents told me I seemed to be a depressed child. (I don't remember hardly any of my childhood...) I was 19 when diagnosed with bipolar disorder but my pdoc/therapist says I've had definite symptoms of it since around age 16.

Current treatment choice/why?
Medication. Yeah, you know...those pills I stopped taking for who knows why. (I need to get back on those lol...)

Did your lifestyle change since being diagnosed?
HAH! I'd say no. I still make just as dumb decisions as I would if I didn't know I was bipolar. I think this question can be better answered in 'does bipolar affect your abilities'.

Your opinion of meds vs alternate treatment?
I think that for alternate treatment to work, you really have to believe in it. I have my ways of nitpicking over minute details in those sorts of plans and those minute details usually turn into gaping holes that stop me from following through with the treatment. My opinion of meds? I don't like them...but I take them. Not right now of course, but I will be back on them soon because I don't want to crash during a school year again.

Level of education? did Bipolar affect your abilities?
Gosh this is a big question to answer. Yes, bipolar disorder has a huge affect on my abilities. In high I was in honors classes my sophomore and senior year...my freshman year I was a straight A student, no problems whatsoever, so they stuck me in honors classes my sophomore year. Sophomore year I got depressed and quit going to classes. My sophomore transcript had something like three F's, two D's, and a C. Then junior year rolls around, oh gosh did my teachers hate me because I was so freaking energetic. I was a straight A student again, like nothing ever happened. My counselor didn't want me getting in honors classes again in my senior year because he was afraid I would fall apart. So he didn't let me take them. What did I do? Went to every one of my teachers and told them to write down why they think I should be able to be in honors classes the next year. Sure enough, the counselor gave me my way and I was in all honors again my senior year. Senior year was the biggest failure ever...I got really depressed again...I don't even want to go into it. I ended up graduating around 260 out of 283, kind of a silly place for an honors student to be.

Even with my terrible grades I still had a scholarship to play golf in college. But, I was incredibly over invested time wise in my sport. Golfing 6-9 hours a day doesn't work so well when you're in college. So I skipped classes to make room for my practice schedule. The end result was that I failed most classes that year.

Ahh, finally we are almost to where I am now. By the end of my freshman year I was suicidal and I told my nurse practitioner (whom I had been seeing since age 10'ish for ADHD) that it was an effort to stop myself from driving my car off of a bridge. She relayed me to another pdoc and he ended up diagnosing me bipolar.

I took a full year off of school to try to get stable on meds and that is what I'm still trying to do. I have around 23 days to become "stable". Stability won't happen, so I have to go into the year knowing that I will get depressed and want to quit again. I can't let my bipolar disorder affect my abilities so much anymore. I will try my hardest to keep myself on track.

Do you work, if so where?
I work at two golf courses. At each of them I work about 10 hours a week part time. One is a city course, one is a private course. The city course gives me free golf at every public course in the city and the private also allows me free golf. So I've got a free golf citywide mini monopoly which is just perfect for me!

Family life? Who do you live with, how do you all cope with this disorder?
I'm 20 and taking a year off college to get stable, I live with my parents. I'm about to leave again though.

Do you feel your quality of life has been increased or decreased since experiencing Bipolar Disorder?
My ups and downs, I suppose, cancel out each others goods and bads. Great things happen when I'm up, terrible things happen when I'm down. I'd love to be normal but if I was never hypomanic or manic, (or whatever you want to term it) I never would have achieved certain things.