Honesty is the best policy. Cheesy cliche, I know, but it has worked for me. If the person you want to be with can't accept you with ALL your faults and flaws, then do you really want that person after all?

I don't hide my bipolar disorder from anyone, at least not those I'm in close contact with. I believe in fighting against the stigma of mental illness.

Right, I definitely WILL tell her. You are right that I don't want to be with someone that can't accept the whole me but I'm not so certain about when to tell her. I am always me so accepting that is accepting me but accepting me as "bipolar" is just semantics of terminology.

I agree with sunkitty, wish I had the strength, and self-esteem, to stop hiding behind this wall, but just know I can't reveal my being bp, only my close family know.
But is you are thinking about having a serious relationship, the other person needs to know, and if they can't accept u as u r, its there loss.
I would suggest counseling too, cause you need support, whatever ur decision is. Hope it all works out for the best. hugs, tedi

I too say be open & honest, its the only way to go

HUGS

Like the other comments suggest, I would recommend telling her as soon as possible. If she rejects you now, it'll hurt you a loss less then if you tell her six months from now. I work for the government and I'm pretty much required to tell everyone around me that I have BP. I'm not subject to bribery that way. Of all the people I know at my job, only one person changed after I told them. Everyone else has been really cool about it. Often other mentally ill people will approach you with their own stories and struggles.

I flat out tell them right away. If they dont like it then their not worth being my friend. Not to mention I told my boyfriend the night before our first date and now weve been married for 18 yrs.

I would say be cautious and make sure the timing is right.

Thanks everyone for your input.. I will try to find the right time and bring it up sooner rather than later.

I've always been straight forward with it... I used to be an advocate so I figured if I'm going to have it I might as well make the best of it..
I have run into stigma at times but I haven't had too many problems.. I think stigma like bigotry or any type of hate or fear is worth standing up to..
I hope things work out will with your girlfriend...x

I know it's something your grandmother might say but I still think it works Captain....

Just be yourself! Your light will shine through...

Oh, I'm almost always up front about it.

But I don't do it like, 'Listen. I must tell you something. I am ... BIPOLAR!!!'

Or as though it were a 12 step program meeting: "Hi. My name is Carla and I have Bipolar Disorder."

I mention it when it comes up in the conversation -- and it almost always comes up sooner rather than later.

I'm on Disability and asking 'what do you do' is a very common and socially acceptable thing that people bring up early on in the conversation.
I know that some people who would rather not say what they do consider it a rude and nosy question, but really it even has a somewhat friendly connotation for most.
It shows an interest in the other person and is a way of saying 'I'd like to know more about you'.

You don't have to tell someone what you do if you don't want to.

You can fend off that kind of question by saying something like, 'My favorite thing to do is rock collecting!!!!', and then start blathering about that!!

Or 'Right now I'm trying to pursue a career in chicken sexing.'

But for me, I simply say that I'm on Disability.

Sometimes I add 'because I have Bipolar Disorder' and sometimes I don't say anything, just to see if they ask why!!! LOLOL!!!!
I don't act deadly serious about it and/or dwell on it and go into it at great length.
I just say it like I would any other pertinent fact about me.

When the time comes when it means making a choice between disclosing your illness or lying about it (even lying by omission), I think that's the time to come clean.

You bring it up later and it exposes you as someone who is not above misrepresenting the truth.
THAT would put me off more than the person telling me they had Bipolar Disorder.

You run a risk by telling.
Someone might not want to have anything more to do with you because you have a mental illness.
Being discounted and rejected carries a bit of sting to it, but in the long run, you're better off not wasting your time or theirs.

After all, if you learn something about them that you don't like or want to get involved with, then you wouldn't take the relationship any further.
It works both ways.

In my opinion if she is one of the people saying bad things about the other with Bipolar - well, ya got your answer. If not, then if she is a good person, just like sunkitty says, she will accept you with all your faults and flaws

It's funny you bring this topic up. I went undiagnosed until I was 26, but I've since told many of my closest friends about my BP diagnosis. Uniformly, they said, "we knew there was something different about you, but we didn't know quite what. You didn't ever go out with us, but you had so many friends and were so outgoing, etc."

I can only tell you how I handle it, which varies depending on the audience. With close friends and my coworkers, I just discuss it casually, usually in the context of overall health concerns (or my mood, if a swing is evident). With anyone else, I usually only mention it if someone is disparaging BP sufferers or making jokes about it, in which case I get off on the shock value of "dropping the bomb" and making them suffer embarrassment. :) My wife, of course, has been around for the whole ride and is incredibly supportive, which leads me to my final words...

You owe it to this young woman, and to yourself, to get this on the table now. The right girl will accept and love you as you are, and she's going to have to do that to accommodate the roller coaster ride that is BP. If she can't do that, there's someone out there who will. Just my $.02. Best of luck, however you proceed!

If you lie about it the truth will come out eventually only it will be worse because you gave no heads up

MayB, it's okay if it's something a grandmother would say....Grandmothers can be pretty smart.

I would definitely never lie about it but, as Eulenspiegel pointed out, omission is really a lie that's just as bad.

I am still in the process of trying to get on disability. I have a lawyer and I am already on the waiting list to appear before a judge so we can present my case and my lawyer seems confident. He only takes cases he thinks he can win anyway since that is the only time he gets paid.

I know I am venturing off topic just a bit but I am only 28 and I've always defined myself through my school studies then my career and now I no longer have either. I very occasionally do small amounts of freelance work because BP don't let me hold job anymore especially now that it has teamed up with its friend Fibromyalgia.

Even though it isn't my fault, I still can't shake this feeling of shame at what I cannot control. Though I am working on it, I used to blame myself profusely for being to weak to overcome things that I USED TO be able to. I realize more now that it has gotten worse and it's no longer something that I "used to" be able to handle.

I am still trying to learn to define myself by what I AM rather than what I DO.

I have so many weird *things* about me that I don't want to pile them on a giant stack at once but I don't want to just add one more during each conversation because I start to feel like people will start to think I'm a hypochondriac!!

I didn't think that she will label me a freak but I felt like I didn't want to see what most see as the negative before she saw the positive. I was trying to balance the scales slowly.

But in the end, you are all right. That's not really fair to her. I just need to put it all out there and let the chips fall where they may.