I've been very lucky. I am so open about my diagnosis that during last year's frosh week at my university I made a speech to thousands of incoming first year students about my experiences as a student with bipolar disorder, about how I dropped out, and how I made it back. I'm in a combined major (music and theatre) and almost everyone in both of my programs knows - and not all because I told them, word makes it way around.

I don't mind though. People are pretty supportive. I'm lucky that I surround myself with other theatre kids and we're all a little nuts. Theatre people seem to accept things the general population doesn't. Over the six years since my diagnosis I've lost 3 close friends, all of them because I was "too much to worry about", but the last 2 of them have worked their way back into the periphery of my life.