I've gone through periods of denial.....usually when I'm ramping up. I was diagnosed three years ago and have wondered many times if I'm just going through a loooong existential crisis. That pretty much went away when I got the bipolar 1 diagnosis last year, but sometimes I doubt THAT diagnosis. Yes, I have full-blown manic episodes but they're not as severe as some peoples'.....and then I realize that bipolar really is a spectrum disorder and maybe my version of BP 1 isn't all that bad. And really, labels don't matter all that much, they're really just a classification system for bureaucrats and health insurance companies to worry about.