I'm not really too focused on labels, per se, but I would like to know if the hell I went through while on meds was really necessary. I was never hospitalized or had any real psychosis until I was put on meds. I had every side effect under the sun including sui ideas and actions and was hospitalized 10 times. I ended up having ECT for a year. This was all because this one person had me diagnosed so quickly. I didn't know any better, and I only saw her for a period of 9 days. (she had me in every day for hours for 9 days). When I went to a new practitioner, an actual psychiatrist, I walked in thinking I had bipolar, so that's what I told him. He started right in with treatment and meds, and that started the descent into madness.

After ECT, I was feeling better and asked my practitioner at that time (I had been through a few by then) if I could try going med free because we discussed the fact that I had more problems on meds than I ever had before meds. She agreed to try, and now it has been nearly two years. (November witll be two years) Since then, I have not had any true episodes (a couple of depressive weeks now and then that coincide with my menstrual cycle) and I have gone through the most stressful times I have ever encountered (divorce, selling a house, moving, settling my kids into new schools, learning to be a single mom and having very little money.)

I still see a therapist and he agrees that I am doing very well and is surprised that the stress I have been through in the last year and a half hasn't caused any episodes. My psychopharmacologist has "graduated" me and I no longer have to see her.

I am virtually untreated and you would think that with no meds at all that I would have episodes if I really had bipolar.

What I went through during treatment has left me disabled, and has significantly affected my memory. I have very little memory of major events such as my wedding, the birth of my children, taking them to Disney World, weddings of my cousins etc., and people talk about things and events that I attended that I have absolutely no memory of.

Now that I have been healthy for so long, I am back to being able to remember almost everything without writing it down or taking notes. Before treatment, I always had an amazing memory, both short and long term.