Thanks Paul, great to hear from you again, as ever the voice of reason, balance and common sense!

A few weeks have wore on since I wrote this post (sorry for the delay in replying to your comments) and I am now quite happily attending OA again, while giving the Bipolar Support group a miss for the time being. I also have some good friends both in and out of the Fellowship (as it is so cultishly known!;))

I go to a support group where we can sort ourselves by mood so the more talkative members can attend a small group where the other members are similarly garrulous.

As to whether or not we think a specific diagnostic label is appropriate for us, I think we need to evaluate whether we have the symptoms and whether or not they’re causing us distress and dysfunction in our lives to the point we’d like to make changes.

Denial of negative circumstances can certainly be part of what we might need to address, though by the same token we shouldn’t second guess ourselves too much. If we have a set of friends we can trust, they can often help us to sort through what’s going on when things may appear murky to us.

I hope you’re enjoying yourself,

Paul