I try to make it so there isn't stigma in my life. I don't tell anyone at work about my bipolar, so there I'm fairly safe since I'm fairly good at the whole "fake it til you make it" thing...but in terms of friends/acquaintances, everyone who reads my wall knows because I post about it on Facebook regularly -- what's going on, what it's really like, and at the end of the post I write "#stopthestigma". I've gotten absolutely no backlash from doing so, and I've now been doing it for a couple of years, so I'm going to continue to educate people, or at least try so that we don't have to deal with all the crap that comes along with what people think bipolar is.

Now I'm not saying there is no stigma...I get crap from my mom all the time who has this picture in her head of what bipolar looks like even though it looks nothing like my struggle. And I sometimes get crap from others, but because I'm so adamant about educating the masses so to speak, I let a certain amount just roll off my shoulders and hope that the person understands later on.