Stability for me means being able to stay calm and collected during the worst, and calm and collected during the best.

Since I've been stable, my mood lability is very tight, I don't go particularly high (I will be 'content,' for example), and I won't go particularly low (no SI, only situational sadness, no full-blown depression). I also have more empathy; as I am not consumed by my own radical moods, I am able to experience others' moods and behaviors with more awareness and even, sometimes, more compassion.

Being stable, I am left with all of my faults, still, and, also, all of what I have going for me. It's far easier to benefit from therapy and work on my faults, especially to work on my relationships.

I do not miss the soul-crushing depressions, which should be obvious, but equally obvious, is that I miss the hypomania, during that wonderous time, before it would turn ugly in so many ways.

I've been stable for a year now, and for 2 years before that. I'm very fortunate that I finally found the right medication regimen, and that my previous therapist, with whom I went very deep and it was very difficult, was so helpful, and that I have my current therapist, who could not be more different, and who practices the kind of therapy I need now.

My previous pdoc, at the Stanford Bipolar Disorder Clinic, told me that she had plenty of patients who had been stable for some 10 years. This has given me hope.

I have heard here and there people intimate that being stable for relatively long periods of time means that your flavor of BP is less severe than others'. I don't think this is fair. I consider myself very fortunate, and I've also put a lot of effort into my mental health (not that this is often enough to be stable, I know), but when I *do* have an episode, which usually leads to terrifying psychosis, it is truly a whopper and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.