I'm high functioning bipolar I with psychotic features and I'm very good at disguising my symptoms because I've been dealing with this for 12~ years. For this reason I was hard to diagnose so I only learned what was really wrong with me in 2012 after a *particularly* bad psychotic/mixed episode.

[EDIT] I should mention that just because I'm good at disguising my episodes doesn't mean they don't happen or strongly affect me

Most people don't know I'm mentally ill unless they've been around me during an episode... I'm usually too embarrassed to tell my friends if I'm having a hard time, because I would have to explain everything, and I'm not even sure they would believe me.

I am going to file for disability at my college this term and I'm terrified of what they'll think! I didn't file for it last year and I managed pretty well, but I'm in the middle of a manic episode and I want to be covered in case I crash.

What should I do?

I need to find a psychiatrist out here but I'm having a shockingly hard time finding any who specialize in BP1-psy!!