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Kestrel - I love that in primitive/pagan belief systems, naming something gives you power over it. In the Bible there is a verse of a similar vein: "Death and life are in the power of the tongue." (Proverbs 18:12... lol just kidding, 18:21, I had to leave the typo in there just because it was dyscalculia-caused) I know from experience that it is so empowering to just being able to say, "This is what I have. This is the reason my life has been the way it is."

Laura - I think it is a good idea for you to wait until your "official" diagnosis in 6 weeks' time to tell your family. There's no need in getting them upset before you know for sure, and that will give you 6 weeks to come to terms with it a little better. Although to be honest, your family will probably not be surprised once they start reading about it. My mom didn't understand bipolar so at first she was like, "No way, you aren't bipolar, people with bipolar disorder are crazy." But I linked her to some good websites about bipolar disorder (like the NIMH and NAMI websites) and once she started reading up on it, she said, "Okay, I definitely see it now."

Re: your panic attacks, you may or may not have read it yet but panic disorder (recurring panic attacks for no apparent reason) is actually fairly commonly comorbid with bipolar disorder. (Comorbid means having two or more disorders at the same time.) As many as 1 in 5 people with bipolar disorder also have panic disorder. The good news is that for many of those people, if the panic attacks are caused by the bipolar and don't have a separate cause of their own, once you start mood stabilizers to treat your bipolar symptoms the panic attacks also subside. I felt a big decrease in my overall anxiety level when I started mood stabilizers, though my panic attacks did not decrease in frequency. Everyone is different.