You're not "bad," sui generis. But you might be bipolar--try to think of a correct diagnosis as finally getting the most current edition of the map you'll use as you move from day to day ... take each as it comes, only a small bite. Today. This hour. Now, sui generis ... if that's the most you can handle without "really freaking out"!

I've been increasingly freaked for the past week, my road not even just unpaved but vanished. I've built a safe and functional support team since my diagnosis of bipolar disorder over six years ago, made by a psychiatrist in the psych unit of a local hospital. My best friends in real life sent me by ambulance, after I'd withdrawn to my bed, ignoring knocks, doorbells, and phones.

Somewhat like you, my original diagnosis (decades earlier, in my case) was Clinical Depression. The psychiatrist kept me inpatient for a month and worked to find the best possible meds for me ... instead of merely "good enough" (to keep me out of jail or another psych ward). But after six years, with a devoted and knowledgable psychiatrist, I had to change the mood stabilizer I'd been on for five years.

The drug we decided to try was Trileptal, which many folks on this site use with great results. I had a bad trip on it. I had an unlisted side effect: I lost all emotional response to my life, my world, myself. My support team, mostly PC members online, held onto me, hung in there with me, saved my life and sanity.

So yes--mind-altering anything is dangerous and potentially deadly. If you take prescription meds, every time you take a med new for you remember this: You have become the Head Lab Rat on the stage of your life. And there is NO OTHER WAY to learn whether or not it's the "best possible" drug for your mental health needs.

I trust my pdoc with my life and my sanity. I get second and third opinions if that trust wavers in the slightest. I have his cell phone # and I used it last weekend once my freaked-out, terrified, suicidal self figured out I wasn't insane or demented ... I was on my first & only Bad Trip.

If your pdoc is your BBF, if your trust in your relationship is solid, if you have the absolutely best support team you can ever put together and count on--then I would take your & your mom's concerns to your prescribing psychiatrist and DO NOT LEAVE until you're comfortable with the plan you've come up with, BOTH OF YOU, as a team.

I'm available, dozens to thousands are available to you through PsychCentral. I wish you peace, deep easy breaths, a quiet soul, and your own safe & mostly stable life.

roads