The thing about a misdiagnosis is this, IMHO. Wrong drugs, wrong treatments/therapies. Admittedly, the mood stabilizer lamictal seems to do SOME good for PTSD patients, but it's definitely an "off-label" use at this time, per my understanding. SSRI's are often NOT indicated for bipolar, as they can induce mania, but the depression component of PTSD kinda calls for anti-depressants.

Funny, I kept being told that the "label" didn't matter in functional terms, it was just finding treatments/therapies that worked. Well, I still contend it matters a great deal. If you had leukemia but were diagnosed with lung cancer and got the wrong chemo, it wouldn't be effective, probably harmful. Same here - wrong drugs and therapies at best get you no where - been there, done that. When I desperately needed SSRI's and an anti-anxiety drug, the quacks gave me neither, insisting I needed lamictal, and well, if it took 2 or 3 months to ramp up the dose and kick in, so be it. For me, it seemed to do nothing whatsoever when it was all I was on. I gotta admit, after some significant tinkering, I am taking both Prozac and Lamictal, a high dose of Prozac and a moderate dose of lamictal, and it seems to be working well at this time. But, I am also seeing a PhD trauma therapist twice a week, and that is definitely a big part of the equation as well. Whatever works, that part is true, but there is NO excuse for sloppy medicine and misdiagnosis.

Insist on a proper evaluation, get second and third opinions as necessary. As I was told, you could have PTSD and bipolar, so that is possible as well. But, with me, I never "felt" like bipolar fit, and overall it doesn't. I've taken a whole bunch of those online screening tests, and always score really low. However, they are, IMHO, pretty much junk, like a push-pull political poll designed to lead the respondant to a pre-determined outcome. The questions are so blatantly obvious "Do you find you think you're Napolean and hook up with 44 people a day?" (I'm being facetious here) that kind of thing. A much more detailed, subtle evaluation would be great, the kind that has hundreds of questions, many redudant, and not easy to "guess at" the kind of answers that indicate one or other outcome. But, that's me.