Maybe I should make this a different thread? It's a pretty long story.

I agree that a diagnosis is crucial. I explained why in my previous post. I had the wrong diagnosis, so I was getting the wrong treatment, so I wasn't getting better.

I was first nearly suicidal my freshman year at college. I was 17. I realized something was wrong and went for counseling. They diagnosed me with MDD. From there, I got many diagnoses. In no particular order, panic disorder, GAD, obsessive compulsive disorder, borderline personality disorder, ADHD, insomnia, trichotillomania (that one's correct), and I'm sure others. I'll keep mentioning BPD especially through all of this. How I talk about it probably makes it seem like a negative thing. For me it was negative because it never felt right. I kept getting this label over and over that never felt true, and that really bothered me.

I never considered bipolar and neither had my providers. Here's why: my bipolar is really abnormal. None of them picked up on the signs, mostly because
a) my bipolar SUPER rapid cycles - faster than most people and providers think is possible in bipolar, so they doubt that it's actually cycling
b) my symptoms are ALWAYS mixed. I always have some hypomanic symptoms and some depressive symptoms at the same time. This is very abnormal and clearly opposite the traditional view of bipolar having discrete up episodes and down episodes.

I'M the one that found the bipolar diagnosis actually.

After my third hospitalization (7 years after my original MDD diagnosis), I was reading online for any kind of other treatments for treatment-resistant depression. I found this website psycheducation.org. It was the answer. He talks about bipolar that doesn't look like bipolar. Everything finally made sense.

Check it out. It may not fit for you. For me, it made EVERYTHING MAKE SENSE.

It turned out that all those past diagnoses were each about just one piece of my bipolar. The anxiety diagnoses, the ADHD, and the insomnia were all about symptoms of hypomania (but since I never had euphoric mania and was basically depressed the whole 7 years, no one realized it was hypomania) - agitation, anxiety, can't focus, can't sleep.
The BPD diagnosis was about my super rapid cycling (which may have been actually caused by all those years of antidepressants) and my intense depression (anyone as depressed as I was wants to cut, is afraid of abandonment, feels worthless and desperate, etc. Also, I was always getting the BPD diagnosis from people who had spent less than 2 hours with me.).

So anyway, I found all this out right after my hospitalization spring 2015 and took it to my then-current therapist T11. He basically didn't care about the bipolar diagnosis, wouldn't talk about it, but apparently believed the BPD one, and essentially told me I was a bad person and manipulative. I stopped meeting with him then. Who can meet with a therapist who thinks about them that way?

I drove the 160 miles back to where I'd been living previously, to my therapist T10 just previous to T11. I'd been meeting with T10 for a year and a half before I moved. I had brought all this evidence, printouts from the website, all my thoughts, and wanted his honest opinion on if he thought this was right. I said maybe three sentences and he said, "Oh! It makes everything make sense!" The therapist who knew my mind better than anyone else was undoubtably in agreement with the bipolar diagnosis.

My then-current psychiatrist was convinced about BPD. His biggest evidence was that I didn't have close long-term friendships. Duh, I grew up in the military. As my therapist pointed out, my relationships with my immediate family were iron-solid, stable, close, for many years. He too had made this diagnosis in one or two sessions. When that psychiatrist moved, my next psychiatrist after several months was like, he thought you had BPD? No, it's clearly bipolar.

So as far as providers,

My current providers are completely in agreement. This is super important because it changes my treatment and they've been able to help me much better knowing that I have bipolar.

My psychiatrist is prescribing mood stabilizers. I didn't have a truly happy day for essentially 7 years. When I got on mood stabilizers, within a couple months I had a full happy week. It was amazing. Some days my emotions are like a normal human's, which is radical for me.

My therapist (I've gone back to working with T10 and make the very long drive every week) talks about acceptance. All those years I was being told by therapists, work harder, work harder, the skills aren't working? work harder, you must be doing them wrong, or try something else, you haven't found the answer yet. It was really harmful, I now know, because I have bipolar. You can't work yourself out of a chemically induced bipolar mood episode. It's just not possible. Treatment for bipolar has to be meds first, therapy second. (Almost) no one with bipolar gets better without medication.

T10 never, ever tells me to work harder. "You work harder than all my other patients," he acknowledges. And I do. I work FRIGGIN HARD. Even after all that hard work, I can barely function but I'm alive.

So that's the bipolar story in a very, very long description. I'm saying it all with more feeling than probably seems appropriate, but I really do feel this grateful for the right diagnosis, grateful that I finally feel happy sometimes, grateful I have supportive providers, and grateful that I have answers.

I hope you find your truth, LonesomeTonight.