I often hear of people losing friends because they didn’t accept their diagnosis or the persons actions during an episode caused friends to walk away. I can relate to both. Right out of highschool is when I told a very few about my BP they just stopped calling. They avoided me like the plague and still do 12 years later. And then there’s the many relationships that i royally screwed up during all the times I was self medicating and manic. Every night was a blackout and by the morning, I’d hear about the messed up crap I did or said and I’d never hear from that person again. To this day I still think about these old friends and I feel guilt, shame, embarrassment. It will never go away I don’t think.