I'm Bipolar: The Biggest Lie I Told Myself After My Diagnosis
Here's the Truth:
Many of us spend months, or even years, trying to outrun bipolar.
I get it.
I was one of them.
When I was diagnosed with Bipolar I Disorder in the spring of 2015, the psychiatric hospital became this strange little cocoon. Our sadness, our mania, our suicidal thoughts, our weirdness... none of it needed an explanation. Inside those walls, bipolar wasn't something to be ashamed of. It simply existed.
Then I walked out the front doors. Outside, there was no place for my hospital wristband.
To wear my diagnosis openly felt like inviting judgment. To hide it felt like living a lie.
So I did what I think a lot of us do. I pretended it had never happened. I went back to work. I acted like the same old Louise.
I took my lithium... sometimes. I was only half honest in therapy.
I convinced myself I could keep one foot in recovery and the other in denial.
I couldn't.
Over the next three years, this led to absolute catastrophe. I made some of the biggest mistakes of my life in those years.
Looking back, denial had its own language.
Rationalizing the High
Explaining Away the Low
Blaming Everything Else
Rejecting the Diagnosis
The truth?
None of those thoughts changed the fact that I had bipolar disorder. They only delayed my recovery. Here's what I wish someone had told me:
Ignoring bipolar doesn't make it disappear.
It doesn't stop the episodes.
It doesn't protect your relationships.
It doesn't protect your career.
It doesn't protect your health.
It only postpones the moment you can finally begin building a life around it.
If you're reading this and some of those thoughts sound familiar, please know this:
You're not failing.
You're not weak.
You're not alone.
Acceptance doesn't happen overnight.
For many of us, it's a process. For me, I glimpsed acceptance in 2019, but didn't find true acceptance until 2021, 6 years AFTER my diagnosis. This story is a big piece of my memoir: Tainted Love. I can't wait to share it with you.
xoxo,
Louise
