all the time.

when i was younger my family never cared, so gave me the bases for being afraid and scared to talk about it (i'd asociate talking about myself with abuse and bad things happening to me), i still do- and it's difficult
when i was officially diagnosed, i was scared of using the world "bipolar", not because i was ashamed of it, but because of the whole stigma surrounding mental illness, and the fact that i'd all ready gone through a lot of stuff that made me afraid

these days, i'm not afraid to say what my illnesses are, but tend not to go in to any further detail about the psymptoms. it's still rather difficult for me to understand that talking about these things is okay and i won't be abused/ made fun of for doing so