3 Things That Hindered my Correct Diagnosis
1. Focusing on One Symptom
During the years from about 1988 through the early 2000’s, as I bounced from one psychologist/psychiatrist to another, I only focused on two symptoms: severe depression and extreme anxiety. I felt such deep despair and debilitating anxiety, that’s all I described. With depression, a lot of people describe “not being able to get out of bed”. I, on the other hand, couldn’t stay IN bed. As soon as I woke up, I couldn’t sit still. I felt like I could crawl out of my own skin. The hours crept by, and it seemed like ions until I could find a little reprieve when I fell asleep at night. I didn’t allow any other possibilities to creep into the conversation.
2. Not Letting the Doctor Drive the Bus
One reason for not allowing the doctor to do their job could have been my type A personality. Or maybe I just had less and less trust in the doctors as I filtered through one after another. Regardless, I pigeon-holed the doctors into one diagnosis: severe treatment resistant depression. I didn’t allow any other diagnosis to be possible. With each doctor I would only describe the severe lows that I felt. I didn’t recognize that I also had periods of hypomania. The counterpart of the depression one experiences with bipolar disorder is the hypomania part of bipolar 2 disorder. But hypomania can be hidden under the guise of an upbeat person. I talked fast, felt exceptionally happy and would have ideas of semi-grandiose. So, they kept treating me with anti-depressants alone. This did nothing but make the cycling between depression and hypo-mania worse.
3. Being Open-Minded
Somewhere in the early 2000’s, the term “bipolar” was mentioned. That was a total shock to me. I couldn’t have an illness as serious as bipolar disease. Not me. Other people were bipolar, not me. Again, I was afraid of what I didn’t understand. I had no idea what bipolar was but it was too serious an illness for me to have. Those people that I encountered in my first hospitalization who heard voices, thought they were God, etc. had bipolar disease…not me.
To do this all over again, there would be MANY things that I would do differently…but above all else I would allow the possibility of something other than what I thought was going on to be the problem. I wasn’t the specialist… Secondly, I would let the doctors do their job. And lastly I would be openminded to a disease as serious as bipolar disorder.