Hi all - another newbie checking in.

After 20 years with a depression dx and 10 with ADHD, I recently had 2 psychologists independently suggest that my symptoms are probably bipolar II (plus ADHD). I had to stop seeing my pdoc before getting an official dx, but I think she was hinting at it too.

I've been reading up on bipolar disorder and suddenly a lot more of my life makes sense. I have at least two depressive episodes every year lasting a couple of months (but not the same kind of major clinical depression I remember from when I was younger) and any time I travel across time zones (and I travel quite a lot) and/or my sleep gets disrupted, I start having hypomanic symptoms that can last 5-7 days before I crash.

I'm a little overwhelmed by trying to navigate the mental health system, and I have very few people I can talk to about this. My hubby is being marvelously supportive, and I'm mostly OK with this, except that I'm terrified that the career that I've worked extremely hard for over the last 7 years will evaporate before I can even get a job - and I just started my job search, which will probably last until at least April.

Hopefully soon I can get a tdoc lined up and then a pdoc for an official diagnosis, but I've been trying to make that happen for 11 months already. My health care provider won't write an rx now unless I go to therapy, so I'll probably end up resorting to a big group practice that I know isn't very good because I also know that they will take new patients without the run-around I've been getting from independent pdocs. It's not very encouraging, but it is what it is. In the meantime, I'm glad there are places like this - it helps to know that someone else really understands what I'm going through.