this feels strange to put out there, but the other day my psychiatrist diagnosed me with bipolar II disorder.

to be honest, I don’t feel great about it. It’s really easy to tell people that the stigma doesn’t matter, but it’s really different when it’s your own diagnosis.

typically i’ve “embraced” my diagnoses bc they made sense and the things i’ve been diagnosed with get a lot of acceptance. It didn’t blindside me. ADHD? yeah, made tons of sense. tell people you have it and they don’t necessarily think differently of you (in my experience, ymmv)

depression? incredibly common and generally easily discussed.

obviously there is still stigma surrounding those, but in my mind, there seems to be much more surrounding Bipolar disorder.

i’m still in denial. i’ve never been in denial about my mental health diagnoses because i’m usually the first to recognize them.

this time i was not.

i want to come to terms with it. i want to treat it (i am) but i feel like i’ve been labeled as a completely different person.

i’m still me. but now it’s hard for me to remember that. I feel like this diagnosis has overshadowed my personality and now i have to figure out if my personality traits are because of some disorder or because it’s who i am. can i even separate it? i don’t know.

to anyone trying to figure out their mental health: it’s okay to be confused and upset at your diagnosis. just like someone diagnosed with cancer isn’t going to be happy, you don’t have to immediately be okay with being labeled with depression, anxiety, bipolar, etc.

it’s okay not to want to share information about your diagnosis. i didn’t even necessarily feel comfortable sharing this here but it personally helps ME to talk about it. that might not be the case for you and THATS OKAY.

grieving being diagnosed does not mean that you are stigmatizing mental health. it means that you just learned there’s a reason to why you’ve been feeling the way you have, and there’s a long road ahead of you to help. it’s difficult. of course you can grieve.