Tonight (Sunday night Australia) on Australian 60 Miniutes was a story about a young woman, a successful journalist with loving parents and a loving husband took her life three years a go. There has been a Coroner's Inquest (they take a long time) and there is going to be a change in the law as pertains to what happened to her. The Inquest found that she had been incorrectly diagnosed as Major Depression when she was in fact Bipolar - diagnosed and treated as such for years and treated with anti-depressants. She moved through several doctors because she was getting sicker and sicker all the time and then she took her life.

The change in the law will require ALL psychiatrists in Australia (I hope it's all of Australia, not just one state) to screen EVERY SINGLE PATIENT who presents for Major Depression to see whether they may have Bipolar. This is a huge leap forward and hopefully should get loads of people at least onto the Bipolar guineau pig meds treadmill so they can progress towards the best meds mix possible as well as more appropriate therapy. (It's just part of the deal having to do all that as far as I am concerned - I'm a guineau pig!!)

My distress is this. I too was initially diagnosed as Unipolar Depression but after I moved from that first psychiatrist onto the second one, after some months she correctly diagnosed me with Bipolar. However, she continued prescribing me SSRI's and for me, even with mood stabilisers, SSRI's were CONTRAINDICATED for me and I got sicker. So, like the woman I have spoken of, I went to another psychiatrist and he also kept prescribing SSRI's and I got sicker, so I ended up with another psychiatrist and he too prescribed me with SSRI's - all of these while adding mood stabilsers, but it clearly, in retrospect was all wrong for me. I lost my career, my house, my friends and family and all my passions and then nearly my life.

This is where I came in. I made a 100% serious attempt - I intended to die. But a gazillion modern miracles of medicine kept me alive through a 5 day coma. Fast forward. I see my treating psychiatrist at the time for the first time since I had seen him before the Act. I asked him whether there is any "de-briefing" of him after a patient has made a fully serious attempt and survived to establish what went wrong, what might be done better etc. He said Yes, and bang. That was it - no explaination of the accountability measures that are in place for people that have our lives in their hands and whose prescribing decisions means the difference between life and death. And he still kelp me on SSRI's - I was always 100% compliant and didn't know they were contraindicated so I just kept being compliant.

I am hysterically crying tonight because the 60 Minutes story made me ask a question (and don't worry, I'm not suicidal). The question is, do I have tio DIE, ****ing DIE to get the privledge of a Coroner's INQUEST?????? Is there no ****ing accountability for people who prescribe high octane psychiatric medication every day? Does all the risk rest with me??

A post note. I moved away from where I was then three months later and found an amazing psychiatrist who very soon established that SSRI's are contraindicated for me - mood stabilisers or not. Had he not, I'd be dead now. He also introduced another medication last year which also saved me life - so with him, I'm lucky. There are so few good psychiatrists - and of course I'm now moving away to another town - for good reasons - but I'll lose my whole wonderful psych team and my wonderful GP - but I was successful in getting two Total and Permanent Disability claims so have bought a little home and am moving as I need to get away from family..