How to tell my family I have bipolar disorder?

I was diagnosed yesterday with mixed bipolar and it explains so much about the last 20 years of my life. But now I am wondering what's the best way to explain to my mother. She is overprotective and worries about me a lot even though I'm in my...

mid-thirties. I don't want to scare the crap out of her (my family likes to pretend we don't have these problems) but her support is really important to me.

Any advice?

You can tell her that you have been diagnosed with depression (bipolar is one of the types of depression called manic depression). And explain some of the symptoms that has caused you problems in your life caused by manic depression, and that you now have help to correct it. She's probably overprotective, because people with bipolar, when in the state of mania, tend to do crazy things, that they think are normal, but actually are destructive actions.

Research it as much as possible, what living with bipolar is like (try and find her websites with the info) and have a plan of how you're planning on living with it... (meds, therapy? etc)