Overcoming barriers...

I am 40 years old, I have had depression and bipolar for years. Only a handful of people know, and that in itself makes me crazy! Fighting the mood swings and pretending everything is ok with a smile on my face on the outside, while on the inside I'm going crazy and it's all I can do to keep it together. Why after all that, do we also have to hide the depression and bipolar from society? It's not contagious, they aren't going to catch it! But here we are, fighting our mental battles and society also. I want so badly to just step out of my "shamed" diagnoses and have people just understand me, us, so we don't have to feel like we have to hide our problems which in my opinion makes my moods worse!