Could someone please explain my diagnosis?

As some of you who’ve read my past posts know, last year was a bit traumatic for me. My Mom passed away somewhat suddenly on New Year’s day 2013, I cut ties with my severely abusive father, ran away to Ecuador for five months, came back to NYC and started a new career, and finally ended a very complicated relationship on New Year’s eve 2014.

I’ve been seeing a counselor since December to try to work through some of the trauma. Overall, with everything I’ve gone through, I’ve felt surprisingly stable and strong. My work performance is good and my social life is decent. I get sad sometimes but usually I’m able to pull through and see the positives in my life despite the absolute hell and abusve I’ve been through.

My therapist says that I seem very well-balanced so I was shocked when I got a statement with a billable medical code (296.55) for “Bipolar I disorder, most recent episode (or current) depressed, in partial or unspecified remission”.

This is really surprising. My therapist never mentioned anything any sort of psych disorder so I emailed her for some clarification and asking if we could go with a less stigmatizing diagnosis for the sake of my work privacy (I don’t want HR seeing). She said we could talk about it at my next session but that it was “just paperwork” and “not a big deal”.

Has anyone else ever received this diagnosis? What does it mean?