How did you all find out that you are bipolar?

I had been seeing my therapist for two years when, with a happy smile and a calm disposition, she asked if I had heard of bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder. I remarked that the former was somewhat familiar to me but I wasn't aware of the latter. She said that my diagnosis might be one of them. I reacted very negatively to bipolar because of all the jokes people made about those who have it (example: she's crazy, she must have BP) and because those I knew that did have it were very abusive to the people they cared about. I felt good about BPD though, because of my limited knowledge on it, and she encouraged me to research it when I got home to see how I felt about it.

While I was doing so, I told my best friend about the possible diagnosis of BPD and she flipped out. She said that a majority of those in women prisons had it and many of them had killed people. She sent links. I was petrified of both of these possible diagnoses for months. Especially since my psychiatrist suggested I might have BP around the same time.

Eventually, I just became more "okay" with either. My therapist told me that just because there were people who did bad things and happened to have these disorders didn't mean that I would end up like them. She used my parents as an example and how hard I try to lead my life in a completely different direction than theirs. When I was concerned that I didn't match bipolar all that well, she told me about bipolar type 2, which fits me scarily well. This change in my attitude was also brought on by how well I reacted to mood stabilizers as opposed to antidepressants.

I still work on it everyday. Sometimes it's hard when people I know self-diagnose themselves jokingly ("Geez I'm having a lot of mood swings lately, I must be bipolar!") or when other people describe people they know with my disorder in order to illustrate how upsetting or negative a person is. However, I know that I am educated on the subject and try to use this information and my experiences to help people understand why this is harmful thinking and how they could unknowingly be hurting someone who overhears them.

Staying positive and accepting yourself for who you are is the best way to go about it.

If you ever need someone to talk to about that, I'm here. I haven't had a job in almost two years because of my disorder. I'm considering SSDI but it's hard to even do the first steps because I get so lethargic.

I was first dx.in 2004. I was 34 at the time and I suffered for almost 10 years with the pdoc and therapist saying I just had depression. It was a horrible. I was totally hypomanic shopping like crazy, sleeping around and drinking lime a fish. My.speech was so out of control at the end. I could hardly leave the house and I thought the police were after me. I thought I could do anything and no one could stop me. So in 2004 my sister took me to be hospitalized cause by then I was si and suicidal. My thoughts were rapid and inappropriate. I was dx.with bp2 with anxiety and depression. It wasn't until about 2008 that I was dx with bpd. Ya like most of us I was on the med merry go round. This that and the other. My depression has been so bad for the last year and a half. My.pdoc was afraid to increase my ad because he thought I'd go.into hypo mania. I.just recently came out of an iop program at the hospital and the pdoc there decided to increase my.ad by 10mg. Boy has that changed my life. Now I'm on.lamictal 200 2x a day, geodon 80 2x a day, neurontin 300 3x a day, lexapro 20mg and adderall 20mg for my out of control adhd. I'm.finally settled down. I'm lucky to have a great team with my pdoc and therapist. Ive heard horror stories about bad pdocs out there..if you think you have a.shizzy one look for another one. There are lots of good ones out there. Don't give up before the miracle happens.

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When I was in my early twenties and I read The Bell Jar for the first time.

Officially, I didn't find out until 2011 when I went to an outpatient hospital program.

There was a lot of bad stuff that happened in the span of time between.