[strawberry11]

I know how it feels. I just recently been told I am bipolar. I went 4 years without anyone telling me and I find out through a letter my doctor wrote for student accommodations for "depression" that everyone had told me and "mood disorder" but never used or mentioned the word bipolar. I was kind of surprised I guess I thought of it as being not as accepted as depression has become or at least to me. You see the commercials for it all the time on tv. Never about any other mental illness. I am scared as to what the future holds for me because of this. I have also been in the hospital multiple times over the past 2 years. I just started to take something for the depression part and I did gain weight but I am going to keep taking it as long as I don't become unhealthy overweight from it just because it is one of the first meds to actually help with that part. I can still tell when I am going through a manic or depressed state but its not as bad. However the manic I don't really like because I know after that I just drop really low. You can do it though. I have looked at it as just helping me understand why I did the things I did rather than not knowing why I did the things I did or feel the way I felt. It has helped me grow as an individual and understand better what my limits are as far as school and work at the same time. I can't be a full time student and work. You just have to take it one day at a time. You can't stress about something you have no control over or you won't know about till later on in the future. Things will work out the way they are supposed to for a reason good and bad.

So I'm adding this because I was sitting at my computer and just reread your first few sentences. It wasn't till that day I read the letter my doctor wrote that it hit me that I had been unwell, that maybe there really was something.