Is it depression or bipolar ????

Hi FT,

Thank you for sharing your experience. It makes perfect sense that you would only talk to the doc during the depressive part of bipolar. I use to wonder if I were a little manic. But it only happens when I get mad. I don't have manic episodes at any other time that I am aware of.

But there are many people that go misdiagnosed. Like you say, doctors are only human and they do make mistakes.

I hope you are having a good day and thanks again for sharing.

Hugs, Karen...

Yeah, my heart goes out. If I hadn't had the same experiences you've had, I'd feel even worse.

But I have had the same experiences. I'd had six years plus getting misdiagnosed as a depressive when I was really manic-depressive. What would happen would be the anti-depressant would send me into mania and then panic attacks. Then I guess they would treat the panic attacks, which were caused by the medicine they gave me to begin with.

Or, they would ignore the panic attacks and say, "Well, what was going on when you had the panic attack?" as if it was my fault, or the environment did it. If they miss-diagnose, they miss-medicate. If they miss-medicate, you're not really being treated, you're being miss-treated. Which is why the diagnosis is so important.

With computers and people being able to go to the net looking up such topics in the search engine as "depression" or "manic-depression" (now called bipolar) or "anxiety" or "post traumatic stress disorder" (PTSD) or any such physical or mental ailment, doctors aren't the only ones who can try to determine what condition a person has.

And doctors have from 5 to 20 minutes or so to figure it out. Patients have all the time they want, from an hour to weeks if they want looking on a computer, printing out items of interest. They can even print out the symptoms of bipolar or depression or anxiety or whatever, and on the printout check off the symptoms they have to see if they quality for that illness.

They can even take the printed out sheet to their doctor and show him or her what they and the doctor think. If the doctor doesn't agree, they can either discuss it or the patient can even get another doctor if the patient thinks the doctor is n ot the right one for them.

Doctors being the only ones who decide such matters went out with the era of men-only doctors, which was decided on by who, men, right, that makes sense, to male doctors. But men and I suppose women psychiatrists are still making the same mistake of diagnosing patients who come in as depressive as depressive, without asking one question, "Do you ever have a racing mind. Do you have trouble sleeping?" to see if they are manic-depressed.

As far as computers, I was at the public library yesterday, and they have plenty of free computers. All you need is a free library card. You can look up various mental conditions on the search engine. The assistants will show you how to do that. You can then print out any pages you want, which the assistants can show you how to do.

Going through 18 different anti-dep pills when your problem was actually bipolar is very said. In addition to my anti-dep., mirtazapine, I also take Lithium as a mood stabilizer, which keeps my anti-dep from throwing me into mania or and/or panic attacks.

Good that you "went to the Mayo clinic site , did a couple of tests and found out that I was bipolar 11 ." You solved that problem on your own.

Hi HT
TIM Tam. long time no see. how are you!


Good stuff.

PT. Try to give your self some compassion think of what you would tell a friend in the same situation. This is the beginning of you becoming your own self advocate. Tough job, yes sadly I know. IN the end. You will be proud and empowered, I promise you that.

Small steps, listen to your body, research major hospitals around the world, learn. Talk to 3 nurtrisinist with 3 different base attitudes/thinking.

Step out of the box of your pain, think of the world around you, what do you encounter, what enters, touches, you're body? what do you inhale, what do you or don't you eat.

open your mind wider so your thinking can expand, the pain can ease, take notes on anything. and everything,
at some point you get an aha moment , something will click the n your pain is down and your are happier.

I wish your peace and strength
Trin a