I'm type 1 and I enjoy long periods of stability. The only times I lose my $#!+ anymore is in the early spring, and sometimes in the early fall. We've dealt with the depression with ADs, thyroid medication, vitamin D and a light box, and we're handling the mania with APs and mood stabilizers. I do quite well the vast majority of the time.

But it wasn't always that way. I used to be a hot mess. In the beginning, I was diagnosed bipolar NOS and I got kind of fixated on having a number, which my pdoc was unwilling to provide as he couldn't quite figure out what "flavor" I had. Then the hospitalization happened, and BOOM, here comes the bipolar 1 diagnosis. I have since been re-diagnosed BP 1 three more times, so I've had to accept it even though it was a shock at first. But like other posters have said, the numbers really don't matter so much because the treatments are the same, and good doctors don't treat diagnoses but symptoms.