I don't think it is quite proper to go around telling your diagnosis of Bipolar II Disorder to people. That's your personal business. Do you go around telling people how much money you have in the bank?

What would you hope to get out of telling this to people? Are you hoping that they will be extra understanding of you, if your behavior gets troublesome? In most cases, they won't. Managing the effect that this disorder has on your behavior is your problem, not theirs.

Do you think that dating will go better, if you tell this to women you meet? It won't. What is going to matter in your life is not the diagnosis, but how you manage it. Telling people the diagnosis doesn't really tell them what is most important. It doesn't tell them how well you manage it. That's something that you can't really tell anyone. Don't worry, though - people will figure that out on their own.

If you think that telling people you are cyclothymic will make them more tolerant of you being moody and having trouble modulating your reactions to things, it won't. What helps people tolerate us is taking responsibility for how we act and apologizing when our behavior is out of line, regardless of what the reason for that is.

When you have dated someone enough to have a serious interest in pursuing a relationship with them, then it might be totally appropriate to discuss your diagnosis. By then, the person you are seeing will know what your behavior is like and whether they want to be around that behavior. At that point the person will give a darn about why you are the way you are. You can both talk about any psych diagnoses and about the way you grew up and the many influences on how you, and she, became the way you are.

I once told a supervisor at work that I had a long history of a mood disorder for which I had been hospitalized. That was a big mistake. It led to her kibitzing with my co-workers in a way that did not do me any good at all. A similar thing happened when I confided in my next door neighbor, and she started making unkind cracks about me to other neighbors. I had thought that my supervisor and my neighbor were kind of like my friends. They weren't. Now, I don't tell my personal business to people, thinking it is a way of deepening friendship with them, or eliciting support from them. Only after someone has proved a true friend would I share things like that.

People who are not your true friends don't care. Sooner or later there is conflict on every job site. Don't give people ammunition to use against you. Cause that is most likely how they will use it.