"Every time I even approach the idea of acceptance, which everyone tells me I must, I break out in fury that this could have happened during the best time of my whole life."

Easy for others to counsel acceptance when they're not facing the LW's experience. I am reminded of a conversation a high-school friend and her parents had years ago, while we were all driving somewhere. They were exploring with her the distinction between respecting another's opinion and accepting it. Perhaps it's possible to respect the diagnosis without feeling obligated to accept it. Over time, acceptance may come, but it can be pretty hard just to seek it out deliberately. Sometimes it's more like Grace. Just a simple gift that appears when you least expect it.

Rather, feeling Rage at receiving such a diagnosis in your early 50's seems completely natural to me. Who wouldn't be furious? And comparisons to other writers doesn't seem very helpful to me, either, considering that so many of them took their own lives, and because the LW has probably already outlived many of them, and had a more normal and stable life, as well. Thankfully, treatment and medications have improved significantly.

However, I am not surprised that it's taken the LW so long to get a diagnosis. My first husband was finally diagnosed as B/P many years after we were divorced. He did not fare as well as she has, perhaps because he was being medicated for depression instead. (Mood-stabilizers may not always be the best thing to prescribe without an accurate diagnosis.) I also have a friend who had some experiences that sound very similar to the LW's, minus the marriage. However, she is pretty happy in her life these days, has a lovely child, a stable job, good friends, etc. She also had to work with her practitioners to find the right medication for her.

Still, it is astonishing to me that the LW's other doctors, etc. could so easily dismiss her achievements: one long-term marriage, well-adjusted children, a successful free-lance writing career, community involvement. Frankly, even people without any mental illness have difficulties in managing all of these details of daily life. My first reactions on reading her letter were: 1) compassion for her suffering, and 2) admiration for how much she has accomplished in her life, in spite of getting such a run-around in the health care system.

Unfortunately, you can't really opt out of the health care system, but have to work it the best you can. (Sounds like your GP is potentially a good advocate.) But, fortunately, there are other opportunities for what are more truly "healing" experiences: acupuncture, massage, homeopathy, and many more, that can augment your other treatment. (And healing is often much more complex for women, given the vagaries of hormones and their role in our mental health.) While struggling with a condition that had the potential to be life-threatening (and which I still resent for effecting unwanted changes in my life), I found a massage therapist who commented to me on the integrity she could sense in my body. MY body. The one that was profoundly anemic, edemic, fatigued, etc, etc. In that one session, her words, in addition to her expertise in massage contributed to one of the most healing experiences of my life up to that point... at a time when I really needed it. I did not find her through the yellow pages, though, but through a personal recommendation (as a stopgap until I could get some acupuncture) from a sympatico friend in whom I confided. I wish you all the best...

The Ms. cover with Jane Fonda and her dog doesn't bother me, either. Why can't a feminist like pretty things? (I'm really not a dog person... but recognize that I'm in the minority on that one.)

As for the heart differences... well, I had just read this AP story: http://www.salon.com/wire/ap/archive.html?wire=D8F786A07.html before catching up with Broadsheet. Granted, the story is more about brain than heart, but I'm not sure that those boundaries are really that black and white.

And, really, who, if not Jane Fonda, has actually lived her life by trying on so many different feminine archetypes?

...interested in Literacy.

At least, I'm pretty sure that's what he meant. (Given GWB's issues with syntax, one must always leave room for doubt.) But, just think about it for a minute... Fox News, the current state of journalism, the average person's competency at reading for comprehension, making it necessary for the Administration to pay journalists under the table...

I think ol' George may be on to something here.