I don't feel at all ashamed at the hospitalizations (I have 2). I don't think they were that effective to be honest. One of them felt like a weird singles mixer. Working with my therapist has been loads more useful.

No, my shame comes from the lost jobs, the bungled interviews, the uninished semesters of college. Come May, I will have been to school nine school years off and on courtesy of my bipolar illness. Each time I can't finish feels like a gut punch and the more it happens the more I just want it to be something else. Something that is actually my fault. Counting cards in Vegas or something.

I asked for an extension on a paper in one of my classes because of my depression, but I couldn't credit my inability to finish that paper to my depression. I credited it to (already existing and serious) health problems because I was too ashamed to say I couldn't get out of bed or wash my clothes for a month and a half in order to show up to my professor's morning class. The professor was annoyed, which didn't help my shame about this issue.