Agreed I know that now. But I didn't know that for the first couple of years after my diagnosis, especially with people in the hospital telling me "You have the most severe bipolar we can think of based on how you presented." You know, I think my situation was a little colored by two things:

I come from a family with a lot of mental illness. Probably tons with undiagnosed BP1 and BP2. My mother was in a psychiatric hospital twice for lengthy stays, once for a full summer when I was a pre-teen. I always viewed it as part of my identity to be the one who held it together and was the 'sane' one. Probably the coping skills I developed as a result did help keep me together, but my diagnosis turned that life upside down.

Also, I am a scientist and was an ardent atheist. To admit that I lost all rationality and didn't know up from down was a huge blow to the picture of myself I had as a rational being.