The number is over the course of 37 years. (Yeah, still a lot!) I wasn't diagnosed for nearly 30 of those years, so the BP ran amok. It didn't really register how many there were, or that it might be an issue. I was young, ran in high gear most of the time (though the BP started with depression, hypo/mania dominated. Over the years, the depression started taking a bigger proportion). I'd walk away without a thought aside from, "I'll just get another one". The number was compounded by repeatedly moving great distances at the drop of a hypo hat. Adds up. These days, I'm downright scared.

One night, a funny thing. I was seeing a comedian while at the table with someone that I knew to have BP (but they didn't know I also did). As part a joke, the comedian said something about having had 30 jobs. This person and I immediately BURST out loudly laughing WAY out of proportion to the other people. (Followed by oops! )

I'd been considering "outing" myself to this person. Fortunately, I didn't. It would have been fine, except he was prone to innocently oversharing, and was closely associated with someone I worked with who later visciously turned on me. SOOO glad I hadn't! She'd have turned it into a weapon without a second thought. (She disdained people with MI. And had zero compunction about lying). In a perfect world, I'd be all for disclosing at work. But in the real world it's just way too easily used unfairly against us.