So I just had a thought… If it took doctors and multiple hospitalizations and then me asking if I have ADHD for me to even get seen for it, only to be miss diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I have to wonder how much many doctors actually know about bipolar too.

The medications they gave me were for mood stabilization and in many cases preventing episodes of psychosis, which I do not have. They were always very afraid to give me antidepressants even though I did much better on those ALONE when I was hospitalized.

And given how many doctors saw me and how many have different opinions, and also given how severely some of the mood stabilizers I was prescribed inhibiting my ability to even walk out my front door (That is not an exaggeration I could not function on these medications),

it really makes me wonder how many doctors actually understand the medications that they’re prescribing for bipolar disorder, how many understand what their patients are telling them when they do an evaluation, and how many of them truly understand bipolar at all.

Because I thought that it was right for a long time but that’s because I didn’t know anything about ADHD and I thought that I was supposed to trust these doctors blindly. It was only when I stopped doing that that anything started to get better.

And I would describe being awake for days and being unable to stop doing a thing, and doctors would think that that made it sound like I was bipolar because my brain is also very fast. But these are also textbook descriptions of an episode of hyperfocus.

And it’s really interesting to think about just how many doctors thought at face value that that was mania and how much reading I had to do to truly begin to understand mania… Which seems like some thing psychiatrist should be aware of.

The thing that really started tripping me up was realizing that the entire time that I would be hyper focused on whatever it was I was obsessed with at the time I would get more and more tired. I also had to fuel myself constantly with coffee.

and mania seems to work in a way where you’re tired after the manic episode ends and during it you’re very energetic. And this isn’t the only thing that doesn’t line up with bipolar disorder in my diagnostic history, and I do still struggle with the derealization,

but it really just makes me wonder how many people are being told that they need to try this medication for longer or that they need to try a different medication for this disorder when in fact they’re being medicated for the wrong thing.

There’s a lot about bipolar disorder that I will not say that I understand but I am trying to learn more about it. But it also should not be on the patient to have to insist to multiple doctors that their diagnosis might be wrong when a medication is ruining their life.

How many people out there are just being told that they need to try another pill while not actually being given any tools to deal with their life? How many lives is it ruining? How many people are pacing their living rooms and drinking just so they can physically calm down?

Why was it my job to seek out multiple psychiatrist to get tested for ADHD at all and not the job of the person trained to recognize psychiatric conditions?Why are the same people so adamantly against self diagnosis when we have track records to prove how often they get it wrong?

I’m not really sure why am thinking about this right now? But it just does make me think of how many years of my life I lost because I trusted people who were trained to do a specific job and then could not adequately do it.

And medications for bipolar disorder are no joke. If they’re not right for you they can seriously mess with your head and mess with your ability to function, work, and regulate your emotions. The wrong person really should not be taking them. And I was.

Not only that but I was continuously taking different and higher and higher doses of mood stabilizers and antipsychotics. Even when I reported that they made me feel much worse, I was still told to take them as they would take time to work in my system. It was hell.

And the entire time I thought more and more often that I was just impossible to medicate or very difficult to treat and that I was doing something wrong somehow. Now that I know the truth… I’m not always sure what to do with it.

There isn’t really a point to this? Except maybe that if you feel like your diagnosis is wrong and your doctor cannot adequately explain why they think your diagnosis is correct or refuses to entertain the idea that they might be wrong,

or maybe your doctor just seems to want to shove pills down your throat, if you can then I would urge you to try to find somebody else. I know that’s not always possible but I would not want anyone to go through what I went through at the hands of medicine.

PS: thank you to all the psychiatrist out there but take your time with your patients. Thank you to all the therapists who take the time to look into why a person feels the way they do. You are making a world of difference and I appreciate your humility.