How did you accept your diagnosis?

You've inspired me to ask my psychiatrist what he's seeing that he thinks I'm missimg. (And I know it is possible... Ive been paranoid and had absolutely no insight and would not believe I was safe. Looking back, I realise that was a bit crazy haha)

Anyway, I have bad anxiety as don't want to be seen as pushy or rude for questioning him further but it's something I really should do.
Looking around this forum is also proving illuminating.

So true.
I've never felt like my life has been about my depression (or even my ocd) but in my mind this just seems scarier and like it could swallow me up. (If that makes sense)

That's what my team keep saying to me! They say I am the on and off meds bipolar cliche. But I don't know if they're trying I trick into taking them haha... And you've touched on another point. I though the super fun, up all night version was the real me... I can't even begin to guess what normal alice is... (But who lnows. Maybe I'll actually turn out to like her!) it's hard taking meds to kill my high when all I ever wanted was the depression to leave haha

You've inspired me to just commit to treatment for the moment. I suppose unnecessarily taking some lithium won't kill me haha
If I do have it (and it feels ever so slightly more likely) then maybe since I'm young I'll get a head start on treatment.

Do you mind me asking how old you were when diagnosed? I think it's easy for me to just try and dismiss the last ten years as teenage moodswings. Not to mention, this state of mind is pretty much all I remember!

No I don't mind at all.

I was 25, going on 26 at the time, it was very healing for me to realize that I didn't just suck at being a teenager, that my struggles really were way more intense than those of my friends. (The comparisons drove me nuts for years, even after reaching adulthood )

Being validated by my pdoc was very empowering and helped me be open to the idea of treatment. Granted I decided against meds at a later stage, but that does in no way mean I reject my dx or refuse to take care of myself.

My goal, meds or no meds, is to be able to live in harmony with my Bipolar.

What about being in harmony with yourself?

What about it?

I no longer have any internal conflict to contend with, dealt with that quite a while ago actually. Living harmoniously with my bipolar can only help.

sniff- I struggle with it everyday- especially when I swallow my handful of pills every morning and every night- I'm still symptomatic but I call it bi-polar light. I can handle to up and down. You are so young and I can only imagine how hard it would be to accept that you have a life-time dx. However, you have a chance to learn how to cope early on. I think that is a real blessing. The dx is only a small part of who you are- it doesn't have have to rule your life, but you can't ignore it either.

in my late 20's I was dx as bipolar but blew it off,, many years of very happy outgoing life till in my middle 50's I broke and crashed winding up in lockdown. dx again and I still have a hard time believing it,, today my life is mild depression and pills, I can laugh but it is few and far between, I think I have accepted my dx too much, as I feel my life is over and has no meaning except to take those damn pills.. I have lost all my dreams and desires.....just waiting to die.

I was 46 when finally diagnosed. I was So relieved to get a diagnosis. I had self-diag. at age 15, after reading a biography of Lord Byron. I told my father "I have this. Manic-depression!" Dad said "You are not crazy. You are just a poet" (I was writing poems then & had 8 published when I turned 18)
I kept seeing therapists but they all said things like "creative people are just different." But I knew I was truly in need of meds. I would go months with less than 3 hours' sleep a night. I was pretty high functioning (got 3 college degrees, always had a job---altho' I'd quit jobs due to hearing voices telling me "everyone hates you" or due to just feeling paranoid)
Don't be afraid of the diagnosis. But it has to make sense to you. Read a lot about this conditon. I would suggest "Unquiet Mind" by Kay Redfield Jamison, The Naked Bird Watcher by Suzy Johnston & others listed on this website.Best wishes to you!

You guys have really helped. I'm feeling a bit more positive. I have known I have a psychiatric illness for a long time but now I know which one (?maybe/possibly/I think) I know what I am fighting.

I know this is from awhile ago already, but like you were in this post, I also was recently diagnosed BP I. I found out through a neuropsychological evaluation I got for memory problems I thought might have been from either brain injury or PTSD (turns out the latter). However, I learned today that both my pdocs think BP II because most of the manic episodes were induced by SSRI/SNRIs, even though the first two were unmedicated and provoked by extreme stress (age 12 and 15). I also thought BP I was extreme, but then I recalled that I may have had a mixed psychotic episode at age 21, SSRI-induced. I told my doctors, but my psychiatrist thinks that since it's been a few years since one occurred, and the hospitalization was eight years ago, that it's unlikely I have BP I because more manic episodes with more regularity haven't occurred. He said he suspected BP II all along (I thought to myself, then why haven't you said anything?! And especially when I brought up that I thought I may be bipolar?), and prescribed me Lamictal. The DSM-V criteria say that, "If there are psychotic features, the episode is, by definition, manic," and the fact that two known manic episodes preceded the SSRI-induced ones, it wouldn't better be accounted for by "substance/medication induced bipolar." So... that's where the neuropsychs are coming from, and my pdocs both think BP II because the SSRI-induced ones somehow "don't count" and I'm depressed more often than not (a feature of BP II, with which I agree).

Now I'm just utterly confused. I just spent nearly two weeks trying to accept this BP I diagnosis only to get confused with "clinical judgment" and my own interpretation of myself. The fact that "this has been me all along" and I just didn't know it makes me feel ridiculous. The fact that all these symptoms are present in my mother (but with way more pronounced grandiose thinking, my god) makes a lot more sense in the context of how miserably she failed on numerous occasions at being a mother. Which of course, that brings up so many issues (e.g., she refused to let me attend public high school after being unable to continue paying for my private school because she was convinced something bad was going to happen to me and that I would get "brainwashed by evolution," YET she would buy me alcohol and cigarettes—great, give a 15 year old depressed person alcohol, smooth move; she also tended to get hyper-religious, ironically, yet saw nothing wrong with the alcohol) that I'd rather not have to think about now, in my depressed state. I just sort of broke down awhile ago with the heaviness of it all. I've been so numb for so long that I haven't been able to cry, but today, it just overtook me. I realized the things I cry over are all the little traumas I check-marked as experiencing on an inventory of trauma exposure during the neuropsych eval. Reduced to a sheet of paper, filled with horrible things.

Being a psychology student, I'm usually the one administering the tests in my research and analyzing the data. Being on the opposite side of the survey really changes one's perspective. And not that this is new, I've dealt with MDD and evidently BP for years, long before I was a psychology student. So I'm familiar with the "under the microscope" feeling, but just not to this degree. BP is, as far as we know it, lifelong. There's a strange feeling associated with realizing you'll need medication always to keep you from tipping too far over a line. Save you from yourself. Or others. Mostly yourself.

Just don't know anymore. Lots of thinking commences.

I'm happy to have the diagnosis after 9 years of hell on my family and myself.
The thing I have a hard time dealing with is how to fix the 9 years of damage left in the wake of this monster.
I also have a hard time with all the wasted time, all the doctors appts. all the meds. I was always "sick". Everyone (including myself) thought it was physical even after all blood tests known to man came back normal.
I was always a very strong, intelligent, hard working woman that thrived on stressful jobs and came out on top. I crashed and crashed good and now I have to be careful as to what events I allow in my life.
I guess in a nutshell, I'm angry that I just can't "live life" like I used to.

Oh my gosh yes, the wasted life aspect really gets me too. Time stuck in hospital and staring at the wall, time in applintments, time thinking about my illness, time picking up prescriptions etc. I mourn for my
Old life and the dreams I now have to question. I'm struggling though my physiotherapy degree but if I keep being as sick as I've been over the last ~7 years then I question my ability to do that work. And I had always hoped to become a doctor afterwards but now the high stress, irregular hours and little sleep are making everyone tell me that it won't be good for me with this illness. It's disheartening when you spend all your time waiting for this to be over to be told that it's a lifelong condition. I'm pissed off right now. It seems unfair and I resent my friends who are going through life so smoothly. I don't even know what course my disorder will take and what damage it will do in the future, which is really getting me down

Yeah I guess we're very different in this so I don't know what I can say. I haven't had trauma, nor physical injuries and my upbringing was fairly mornal. Everything was going swimmingly until I was a teenager and I was suddenly deeply depressed. Things don't even seem to set my mood off generally. It often comes out of nowhere. I know that antidepressant induced mania doesn't count because it's actually somewhat common for people without bipolar disorder to get that. I Guess maybe try to focus on the symptoms for now if nobody can decide. My psychiatrist didn't tell me for five years since he wanted to be sure and didn't think I would gain anything from speculating. Taking medication doesn't bother me. I've been on meds for years so that didn't really bother me, it's just a part of life. What I wish is that they would guarantee work like they do for other conditions.

Yeah, pissed off is a good term! Downright Donkey wangers pissed off!!
I had a good career and it went down the tubes. Now that I'm feeling better and have a new job, I have the chance to excel again, but honestly....I'm quite frightened.

I guess it's a fine line. You can't spend your whole life fearing for the future and waste your present moments with worry. On the other hand, you'd be silly to have this illness and not put any thought or planning into your future. I feel like I'm basically in mourning for my life. (I knew I was sick but I just thought I kept getting depressed and I hadn't found the right antidepressant) I've been in denial about my manic times (I still struggle to believe that I could be too happy) and now I am pretty firmly stuck in anger. This just downright sucks. Then there's the fear. I'm quite scarred by my last depressive episode which essentially went on for two years. I thought I was being tortured inside my own head. Later, I legitimately thought I'd died and had ended up in hell. The thought of returning to that fills me with so much dread and sadness. My dreams are now of boring, predictable moods haha...

Just from the reading I have been doing the past few days, it says to expect the depression to come and go. THAT I am not thrilled with. Hopefully the meds will keep the depression to the point where I'm at least functional, as my depressions would put me in bed and at a place where I couldn't even force myself to brush my teeth. It was a god awful dark place to be.
I am angry too, but I have hope and once you run out of hope?.....game over. And suicidal I have never been.

Took me more than 20 years to accept the BP Dx, the PSTD that was easier and much more disabling at the time. I convinced myself that all my problems were only PSTD despite the evidence to the contrary. My last therapist kept saying yes you are BP, but I refused to see a Pdoc until it all fell apart, then and only then did I consent to medications.....I wish I would have capitulated much sooner.

I guess what makes me angry is over the past 9 years, no one ever even mentioned bipolar. I just kept getting ssri's which didn't do a damn thing. It was I that had the inkling that I might be bipolar.

I accepted it by rolling out a red carpet for it in my mind. I was RELIEVED AND GLAD that I finally had a name for my unimaginable suffering, and that I was not alone in experiencing this illness (and others). It helped me understand the magnitude of my suffering. And, I was glad that there might potentially be a treatment option for me (nothing has worked, and nothing ever will).

BPD, Bipolar 2, GAD, MDD.

I was diagnosed at 15. I believed the diagnosis until I became much better at about 18. I wrote off all of my suffering. After that, I had, in hindsight, some hypo-manias, some minor depressions and 2 major depressions. I wrote all of this off also. Then, at 28 ( just 3 years ago), I had a major manic episode and psychotic break followed by the worst depression I have ever had. When I came back to reality, There was no denying the diagnosis. I went back to a pdoc and got back on meds. This is when I finally accepted it. Of course, whenever I am stable for a few months I start to believe I am fine and believe I don't need my meds. When will I ever learn!

Yeah they gave me those too which made everything worse and that's when I swore off all meds for 10 years. My all or nothing attitude didn't help things.

I think what bothers me is the hell my family went through. I believe that I can move forward in a positive way, but I really feel that I owe them a gob of money for sticking around. lol Realistically, I know that's not true, but I do feel guilty for them having to deal with this. I know they felt as helpless as I did. They wanted to fix it, but didn't know how.