No, the opposite, I'm very functional. Even during my day hospital fiasco, I was struggling to keep functioning - I went into my office at night some nights and tried to get through some work in the quiet of a deserted office building. I admit I was marginal in terms of work performance, quality and quantity sucked, but at least I tried.

I never denied per say, I just denied my initial diagnosis of bipolar, because I really, really feared that. When I had a couple of them tell me the initial was wrong, PTSD instead, I was totally thrilled with that, at least until I came to realize I was just as unhappy - in that case, label didn't matter.

I'm becoming more and more aware that my paranoia or hypervigilance or whatever concerning both society and personal/family reaction to all of this is not reality. Funny, just over last weekend, I was surprised at how warm, friendly, and even close some of my relatives now seemed, when in the past, I feared them. Now I want to develop stronger connections with them. Weird, huh, who knew?