The nurse practitioner I'm seeing about my ADHD diagnosed me with bipolar disorder
She literally could not have surprised me more if she tried
This makes no sense to me but it's scaring me a lot :(
I don't really remember having manic episodes? Depressive maybe but it's usually after something bad happens to me and not really consistently....
I told her I put off making this appointment cuz I've been feeling really bad recently, then she just asked me a few questions like if people say I talk too much sometimes or if I do things impulsively and prescribed me an antipsychotic (aripiprazole) wtf
I asked some family and they haven't noticed anything like this... idk :(. Has this happened to anyone else? Am I just in denial? I'm afraid to take this drug she gave cuz I really don't need to be even more tired all the time... or tardive dyskinesia or something (unlikely, worst case)
A friend of mine went for years being told she was borderlinr, bipolar, went through a bunch of medications IIRC. Turns out it was just ADHD and years of her life were just wasted. Its so frustrating.
I was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult as I was struggling (still do) to stay focused at work. But the psych also said I had OCD, possible bipolar, said there was no chance I was on the spectrum...
I dont think there's a science to the stuff at all and people can be seriously harmed by a misdiagnosis. A lot of mental health communities say that people shouldn't self-diagnose and trust doctors, etc. But I think I dont entirely agree with that. I think only you really know yourself and you should try to weigh your own judgement against theirs, while not discounting either.
Add to that that diagnostic criteria isn't super clear and has a lot of subjectivity in it, and the extremely diverse ways people respond to the same medications, and its a miracle we ever diagnose people correctly without just asking them "what do you think is wrong?"
Sorry, maybe I'm rambling
I saw this the other day, a mapping of the symptom overlap in the DSM.
My wife recently had a nurse practitioner put her on a couple different anti-depressants when she just went in for ADHD/autism type stuff. The anti-depressants sapped all joy out of life and she completely stopped doing any of her creative outlets. She just decided to stop and let the NP know.
The NP was a little taken aback, but when my wife explained it, the NP was like "Interesting, i've had quite a few patients in similar circumstances express something similar".
The fear of being labeled a difficult patient often prevents people from advocating for themselves.
Wow, thanks for that image! The symptom overlap is something i remember from the psych 201 course i did in college, forgot the name, but yeah you notice it pretty quick once you need to write it out on tests.
I was on antidepressants for a while too and I would say they helped since I was depressed, but only marginally, and it was so long ago I can't remember clearly how I felt. I dont want to come across as anti-doctor and anti-treatment of course, just think that our opinions matter too as we know ourselves.
I've had a couple people in my life accuse me of being borderline or bipolar or a psychopath or things like that as a way to hurt me, so I'm pretty sensitive about it.
Oh I don't want to come across anti-doctor either. Just expressing frustration over the gap of how medicine as a whole operates vs what is needed for people who need help.