It sounds like recognizing an episode is crucial to you and anyone else involved so that you realize you may not be in a good state of mind to make decisions.

Part of my problem is that I can't figure out my own signals to know what's an episode. I have read a lot of books about Bipolar and know the symptoms of mania and depression well, but there have been times where my therapist or others told me I was manic and I didn't see it at all. Then, sometimes I don't really feel much of anything, which seems like normality, but feeling flat can also be depression, so it's hard to answer people if they ask whether I'm depressed. Other people say to me, "this is what's happening to you," but I don't really feel anything that resonates with it. Then I become more aware of symptoms or realize I've mislabeled something, and try to share it with a professional, and I feel shut down by the people I'm talking to, like it's not really anything important and I shouldn't worry about it. Or, the thing I keep hearing is, "You need to be honest," as if somehow everything is my fault and if I would just have been forthright, none of this would be a problem.

I realize I'm not the professional, but it's also hard to get people to take me seriously, even in what I would consider a crisis. Obviously I don't want to end up in inpatient treatment or unable to care for my kids or myself, and I'm motivated to find a solution for (or better ways of coping with) these problems. But I have a history of not cooperating with treatment, and now it's hard to know whether I need to speak up and assert myself and my opinion. I don't want to just go in circles; I want to find some sort of improvement, even if it's gradual.

It's hard to know what's real and what's not real, what's important and what's not important, whether to trust myself or not trust myself, and whether to trust people around me or not. I know it's something that has to be worked out through a period of time with a counselor, but it's also frustrating if you're in a situation where you feel like you don't have years to wait for things to just magically start to improve.