When I first was diagnosed, I was crushed, but eventually I realized what I was crushed by was that it took so long to get the diagnosis. I was 35. And all of a sudden I was able to think back on my life, a lot of pain, a lot of inexplicable moods and crazy decisions, and understand it with a whole new perspective. It was devastating to me that I could have known that all along, I could have known and accepted that, and chosen differently so many times if I were able to have been treated earlier. But then, there was this happy feeling, because I felt like I belonged somewhere, which I have never felt before. Perhaps it is pathetic for one's first experience of belonging to be to a category of mental illness, but that was it for me, and I was happy about it. I remember the first time I came on PC, I read a few posts, and I figured, OK, here it goes, and I just went all in. I wrote about how I'd been experiencing black manias that would end with me flailing around, punching myself in the face and chanting 'I'm going to kill myself' over and over again. And I checked in like a few hours later, and there were all these reposes, and people were like 'ah... one of those nights huh?', like it was no big deal, and people clearly knew EXACTLY what I was going through, and that was another first. The fact that I experience such moods is something that I have always sought to keep a COMPLETE secret from the world, and now there was this place with hundreds of people I could talk to and who would hear and support me. And gaining a community and a category, has ended up being a really positive thing for me. It has also helped me to take responsibility for the ways in which my behaviors affect the ones around me, especially my family, and I feel really happy about that as well, though that is also sad, that it has taken me so long to realize that it is me that is causing a lot of this strife in my life, not them.

Anyhow, I am ranting, but those are all things that have helped me accept and even welcome my diagnosis.

I hope you are well.
Soon...
MT