Its been 10 years now that I have been visiting psychiatrists (or being taken to them by my parents) and I just never seem to know what to tell them, esp. when I'm having an episode. When you visit between episodes, then its a simple 'everything is alright, continue same meds'.

And on the couple of times I have actually tried talking, I have been cut-off mid-sentence. I guess the 'talking' part is done with a therapist. And the psychiatrists are there simply to prescribe pills based on your 'symptoms'. And I just simply don't know what 'symptoms' to tell them. Its either severe depression (which is not difficult to feel at all) or full-blown mania (again easy to see) but everything in between (hypomania/euthymia/remission) or everyday moods are incredibly difficult to keep chart off.

There was this one time when I was diagnosed to be having another depression episode and prescribed pills. Then 15 days later, no change in symptoms, and the same thing became laziness. Its just really frustrating and confusing.

On top of that, you are told its a chronic illness with no cure, and you need to learn to 'manage' it. That's like a death sentence (or a life sentence to be more accurate).

It is overwhelming a lot of the times- the episodes themselves, the ramifications of those episodes, and to add to it, this 'trial n error' treatment methodology. The cocktail is just not easy to handle.

So, after this random babble, it is tough and you just got to somehow hang on, I guess, a lot of the times.