I was BP-NOS for two years. I asked my pdoc several times which flavor he thought I had, and he would not be pinned down. I don't blame him, my symptoms were all over the place and although I had episodes that should have defined it (in my opinion), he just wouldn't budge on the NOS diagnosis.

The game changed when I was hospitalized and three different psychiatrists said I had bipolar 1. Weird that it came in the middle of a depressive episode, but evidently they saw something in my chart that made them think that; maybe it was the crazy manic overspending (spent my family into bankruptcy x 2) and paranoid delusions. Oh, and there was the psychotic thing where I saw cats running under the linen supply cart in the ER. Now my own pdoc uses the same diagnosis on my paperwork, so bipolar 1 I shall remain. It's OK though, at least I have a definitive diagnosis and don't feel like I'm in limbo anymore.