The beginning of this year, things were not going well. I hated my job with the fire of a thousand suns. I was having difficulty finding something else. I was frustrated, I was angry, and I was very depressed. I was not in control of my emotions. Cool Boss (who is the hero of this story) was convinced that something was wrong with my meds. (After 8 years on Zoloft, I had recently switched to Wellbutrin.) I made an appointment to see a psychiatrist in May. (This was early March.) Things got worse, and he advised me that waiting for the May appointment was not the best idea. (Also at this point I had a long e-mail conversation with a fellow blogger about psychiatrists and therapy with a fellow blogger- I'm grateful that she took the time to do that for me. I'd had a bad experience with the only psychiatrist I'd ever seen (he creeped me out, so I stopped going.), and I needed some reassurance that not all of them were like that.) I was, at this point, sleeping about 4 hours a night.

I made an appointment with a different doctor for March 28th. After a taking a long and detailed history (something Dr. Creepy had failed to do), she said, "I don't think that depression is your problem. I think you have bipolar disorder." (I have bipolar II- I haven't gone into a full manic state. Depression and hypomania with some mixed-mood states thrown in. Mixed-mood state: All the fun of depression with the anger and irritability of a manic episode thrown in. Fun for all!)

My first reaction was not shock or disbelief- the reason I had seen Dr. Creepy was because my PA thought it a possibility. (I've since learned that several family members suspected it as well.) I felt a sense of relief, a sense of hope. I'd been on anti-depressants for 8 years and still never felt "right". For years, I'd watched myself lose control and rreact to things in a way that I knew was ridiculous. I couldn't help it- I had no control. I left with a starter pack of Lamictal and a prescription for a lower dose of Wellbutrin.

I alternated between wanting to tell everyone (maybe I had an answer!) to not wanting to tell people (by the time I left the doctor's office, I'd realized that I was not at all comfortable telling the guy I was dating at that time. This is not the reason I broke things off with him, but if there hadn't been those other reasons, this would have eventually been a problem.) There are still many people in my life who don't know (I have family members who don't believe in mental illness.).

Things didn't get better right away, but they did get better. As TR girl put it when I finally told her (and really, why she was one of the people I told was a mystery. Yes, keep that from you sister who works in the mental health field. Good plan.), "I bet you feel better than you have in a long time." And I do.

And yet, there are days when I am overwhelmed by the forever-ness of the diagnosis. It's difficult telling a friend that you need her to look out for you, that these are the things she needs to watch, and that if she has to take you to an inpatient clinic, this is the one you prefer. (Hopefully, I will never need hospitalization. But if I do, I probably won't know or admit it.) There are days when I cry. There are days when I know I will be OK; there are days when I don't think I'm strong enough to do this.

Everyone that I have told has been accepting and supportive, but I am still choosing who to tell. I still have questions about that. Do I tell my new boss, in case things get bad again? At what point do I tell someone I am dating? Clearly it's not a first date topic, but at what point does it become something I am hiding? I don't know the answers.