Accepting your bipolar badge

The path leading from denial to acceptance is a rocky road, but you can stick to the following steps to take the bumps in stride:

1. Ask your psychiatrist to explain the reasons she arrived at your diagnosis and treatment plan.
Knowing the symptoms, background information, and other facts that helped your psychiatrist arrive at your diagnosis is more likely to convince you of  its veracity. You deserve an explanation.
2. Get a second opinion, but don´t tell your second doctor what your first doctor thinks.
Two concurring opinions weigh more than one. And if the two doctors don´t occur, you may need to dog a little deeper by consulting another doctor or doing a little research on your own. Accept your diagnosis only after carefully and honestly assessing all the information from professionals and feedback from loved ones.
3. Look back at what your life was like before diagnosis.
Did low-levels symptoms negatively affect your relationships, your plans and your happiness? Looking to the past may help you realize that your life wasn´t a bowl of cherries before the diagnosis and that your life can be much better with the proper treatment.
4. Ask your friends and family to provide honest feedback about your moods and behaviors in the past.
When experiencing Hypomania or mania, you may not objectively perceive your behaviors, which can lead to denial.
5. Read stories of people who have bipolar disorder, especially those who are on the road to recovery.
Patty´s Duke A Brilliant Madness: Living with Manic-Depressive Illness and Kaye Jamison´s An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness are excellent reads. Jane Pauley has also written a biography that includes a description of her personal experience with bipolar disorder called skywritting: A Life Out of the Blue. Reading about other´s experiences with bipolar disorder can often help you recognize parallels in your life.
6. Attend bipolar disorder support group.
Having a forum you can connect with others who face similar struggles can help you bear your burdens and discover useful coping strategies.
7. Realize the upside of bipolar disorder
Many people go through their entire lives without experiencing the extremes of mood and emotion that you´re capable of experiencing. Kaye Jamison´s Touched with Fire: Manic Depression and the Artistic Temperament can help you appreciate the positive aspects of bipolar disorder.

Of course, working on acceptance assumes that you´re in a receptive and rational state of mind. If you´re experiencing a mood episode that immediate treatments, your doctor may treat your symptoms whether or not you accept the diagnosis, for your own health and safety.

Source: Bipolar Disorder, candida Fink, MD, Joe Kraynak