After a nine month run with just taking Depakote, my p-doc added Lithium to my diet a week ago and I feel great. I relapsed and had a tough December, walking out on my family and forcing my parents to leave my new home (which they saw for the first time on that very day). It sucked. My dad was real worried about me and he's 79 so it wasn't fair to him.

But the Lithium seems to control my propensity to be angry, impulsive, and paranoid. Now I take 10 pills a day......load 'em up! Thankfully, I'm tolerating it all pretty well so far.

Along with the Lithium, I finally got an official diagnosis of BP II last Wednesday. I knew before that I had an issue but my p-doc wasn't sure on what level I landed. Now, I feel more liberated than before.

Acceptance = direction, peace of mind. I am an adult. I'm 50. And I'm bipolar. For sure, one thing that has helped me is the complete acceptance of the diagnosis. Everything we read is sort of scary....it's a lifelong illness, we can relapse, we can move to BP I, we need to make all sorts of changes, etc.

But as I've come around to accepting it more than before, I found I could be completely honest with my family about who I am. Now, I can go to them and say "the doctor says" instead of "the doctor thinks". They asked me all sorts of cool questions and I found that information is power. I could educate them about who I am and what to expect. In the end, I'm just comfortable with me being me. So far, so good. One day at a time.