I’ve always had a family history of Bipolar Disorder. I’ve witnessed my grandmother in and out of psychiatric wards, put on all types of medication, go through different types of therapy- and nothing seemed to work. My first semester of college, I started meeting with a psychiatrist because I knew something was wrong. Deep down, I knew there was a possibility that I could have bipolar disorder, but thought maybe I was over exaggerating my mood swings. I knew my psychiatrist would help me figure out whether my mood swings were normal, or if my worst fear was coming true. I still remember the date, December 1, 2021. I had a journal that I had documented my mood swings from the past 1.5 months and I read them to my psychiatrist. She said due to my family history and what I had told her, it was clear I had bipolar disorder, and she diagnosed me as Bipolar 2. She gave me mood stabilizers that I never took, because everyone around me told me I didn’t ‘seem bipolar’. I should have never listened to them. A couple months had past, I was still in college and could barely even function as a person because of how bad my depressive episodes were getting. Because of this, I lost almost all my friends except one. I wasn’t going out and had little to no social life. It felt like the world was ending around me, and nobody seemed to notice. I met with a new psychiatrist and explained to him that I had previously been diagnosed with Bipolar 2, and read him my updated journals from the past few months. I thought he would have the same diagnosis as my prior psychiatrist, so I was expecting that. He told me my mania was too intense and long for the criteria of Bipolar 2, and that I was actually Bipolar 1. Just like my grandmother. I had been diagnosed with Bipolar 1 at 18, in my first year of college. I was completely lost. I had seen how poorly the system treated my grandmother since a young age. I didn’t want that to be what the future had in store for me. From what I could tell, the psychiatric units she was in seemed borderline abusive. I started on antipsychotics that night, even though I was still processing what had happened. I finally started to get my life back after I started that medication. I started researching therapies, and found DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy). I bought the online journal and started working through it, and I honestly believed it saved my life. However, when I brought DBT up to my therapist, she had no idea what it was. When I brought it up to my psychiatrist, he said it was for people with BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder), not bipolar. Because of how much DBT therapy helped me, I became an advocate for it. Part of having Bipolar Disorder and/or Borderline Personality Disorder is having emotions ‘too big to handle’. I started spreading awareness about Borderline Personality Disorder, Bipolar, and DBT therapy to my friends through Snapchat and instagram stories, and told them if they had any questions to message me, and that I’d be a support system for anyone who needed one. I was surprised by the number of people who messaged me asking me for advice on mental health related issues, and some of them just really needed someone to talk to. I hope one day I can have a larger platform to speak about these kinds of issues and to spread awareness. Currently, I am double majoring in Forensic Science and Biology at Alfred State College. I hope to one day work for the FBI as a forensic biologist. Through this journey I learned kindness and compassion for others, which will stick with me through the rest of my life.