Thanks for all the awesome answers guys! I'm sorry for how much some of you have to deal with :/. I'm beginning to think i was misdiagnosed, i think my therapist is thinking the same, i definitely feel the ups and downs of mania and depression depending on a lot of environmental factors. What some of you guys go through sounds far more out of control than my experiences. I have had very crazy points in my life, but i think substance abuse and other things could be the reason. I was very up and down as a kid/teen as well though. Is there a such thing as mild bipolar? Or even mild bpd? I feel i have the tendencies of these conditions, but are much more easily controlled and almost non existent while i'm clean and sober. I'm just trying to learn as much about all of this as i can. One thing i don't understand is, how did a genetic condition such as BP get passed down for so long without people dying off that had it? Medication is relatively new so how did people function and how did it manage to live on. There had to be some purpose to it?