How did you accept your diagnosis?

Accepting my bipolar diagnosis was easy for me. I always thought I was goofy and crazy. I thought this was just me. So I had a low opinion of myself. But now I know better.

It was really tough at first being dx bp2. I knew there was something wrong with me and i suffered for eight years with everyone thinking I was just depressed. It wasn't until my hospitalization in 2004 that they realized I was actually bp. The hardest dx of bpd was harder one for me to accept. I thought my life was over ..who would want to love someone with a borderline personality let alone bp? I've been to hell and back during my life and it shaped my brain into a dysfunctional mess. Now I know I am worthy of love and acceptance. But sadly i don't have any real dreams. These illnesses take over my life. I have to now plan my life around my illness. In on disability, work only pt and schedule my week around my therapy sessions. What a way to live. I'm a pretty optimistic person at heart but the depressions kick my ***. I also need to see a neurologist for my memory problems...I virtually don't have the ability to form very good memories at all. I think my brain didn't develop properly because of the childhood abuse i endured.

Yeah, feeling like a burden can be tough I'm sorry that your family had to go through that experience.

I had been struggling with anxiety and depression starting in my teenage years. After I was diagnosed, I checked out. My mother took over, it wasn't until I was older when I came to struggles with accepting it. I was embarrassed, didn't tell friends. After an incident, I had a moment where I just cried and cried. I wanted to know why me? Why do I have to feel this way? It takes daily work to remember this is something that will be with me the rest of my life.

At the time I was so manic I thought my diagnosis was hilarious.

THIS!
The way I saw it was that I was finally happy for the first time in ages and everyone had a problem with it. Id been desperate for somebody to cure my depression and NOW they had a problem with my mood when as fat as I was concerned, life was peachy haha

I think I thought it was all funny as hell until I started to come down

Same I have been on SSRI's for 11 years. I was diagnosed about a year and a half ago. I was in a controlling relationship when that ended I thought that was my reason for being depressed. Then I obviously when on a mania , I was so happy partying and doing what I wanted. I met someone else and a year in he said it's like your manic or something. That was my light bulb moment. I went to hospital and saw the duty Dr where yep I have bipolar. I was very lucky not to be hospitalized. I'm still on SSRI's and seroquel , my Pdoc then going to take me off the SSRI's.

I guess I always I knew I was different, from a very young age...I intuited things different than people around me, but I also did some really crazy sexual stuff long before the age of sexual maturity....(red flag anyone?).

I went for years dx'd as ADHD, it wasn't until my 30s that I was diagnosed as BP2, and taken off amptheamines (which were exasperating my condition, to the point of pure mania) and put on gaba and Zoloft.

Now, I still go in to hypo states, but they are normally just exhibited as being really damn hyper...these are normally follow shortly after or concurrent with depressive episodes....and I will swing around in that state for a week or so...and then I level out again....

At first, I didn't want to accept it as my dad's best friend (and a dude I thought was really cool when I was growing up) was BP1 and ended up committing suicide in a very gruesome way...and I didn't want to accept that I had something akin what drove him to do that....but I finally accepted that my BP2 was not like his "Fly to South America and buy two Mackaw's on a whim" BP1...so...

I was thrilled with the dx- it finally explained my entire life! I have had bouts of eating disorders, depression, addiction, etc since I was 13. I have been on anti-depressants most of my adult life (I'm 38) and they didn't help me much. The dx has helped me realize that while I still need to be held accountable for my actions, that there really is something chemically wrong with my brain and that I'm not just a bad person.

I was diagnosed Bipolar 1 in 2004. when I was 40. Before that I engaged in risk taking behavior. LOTS of risk taking behavior. I ran wild. My diagnosis explained a lot of my behavior up to then. So I was very relieved.

When I was first diagnosed it made complete sense and clarified a lot of the things I had gone through the previous 10 years.
What I did have a problem with was accepting that I need to take medication to be healthy. This has been the biggest struggle. When I was first diagnosed I gained 55lbs in 8 weeks from a medication switch. So my doctor agreed that changing medications made sense. That was on Friday by Tuesday morning all I could invision is hurting someone else. Vivid visions of things I could and at that time actually considered doing. I was admitted to the Psych centre within 3 hours of waking up that morning. Over the course of 6 months I think I tried 20+ medications and multiple combos.

I was about to call it quits and just deal with the crazy unmediated. My doctor and I discussed my options and we decided to try something new once more and magically it took. I started to feel better within days/weeks.

That was 3 years ago, and all though it hasn't all been smooth sailing(especially right now), but it's manageable

For me, I know that accepting the fact that I need medication and reading up on solutions for coping with my bipolar traits is the only way I am going to get through life and be one up on the BP.

It took me years to accept it, my biggest issue was that my mom didn't believe I had bipolar and refused treatment after I was diagnosed at 16 and had a terrible reaction to Lamictal. I thought I could just manage it on my own... which was not the case. After seeking treatment at 22 after coming down off a year of perfect hypomania, I spent a couple years on and off meds (I hated taking them and I was trying to chase that hypomania). When I finally settled down and realized that I needed to move my life on, I started taking a meds regularly, sleeping normally and eating healthy my life finally became more ordered.

It is different for everyone... my bipolar diagnosis is not who I am as a person.

I can't. I struggle. There are only 4 persons knowing my illness - my pdoc, my t, my husband, my sister. Cannot tell my mom. Would not tell anyone at work, acutally I'm lying when they see my sleepy or weirdy due to side effects of drugs. It's been bit more than a year since I'm diagnosed and I feel ashamed. I know there's nothing to be ashamed off, but I cannot help it.