I've been diagnosed BP by about 7 different doctors over the course of about 12 years. I've always been skeptical of the diagnosis because I don't feel I really fit the classic description of bipolar and I'm usually very high functioning. I also have episodes of debilitating anxiety/panic, which confuses things a lot.

Anyways, I started seeing a new therapist about a month ago and I recently sent him the majority of my medical records (all the ones I could find that included psych diagnoses). At our last appointment he basically told me I don't have BP and said all my previous docs were either just lazy or trying to pigeon-hole me. While I agree I don't neatly fit into the BP box, his reasoning seems flawed and almost too extreme in the opposite direction. For example, he says that if I experienced hypomania for more than 7 days then it wasn't hypomania because it would have escalated to mania. He also really downplayed certain episodes of delusional thinking, saying that all of that was just part of my health anxiety and was therefore grounded in reality. Finally, we discussed my experience with zoloft, which is that 75mg made me very elevated and 50mg made me suicidally depressed/rapid cycle. This led him to the conclusion that I had one anti-depressant induced mania but was in no way indicative of bipolarity.

It's not that I want to be bipolar, but now I'm having a hard time trusting him because I feel like he doesn't get me. He said if he had to diagnose me he'd go with MDD, which I don't agree with, as my problems have more to do with anxiety and lability/stability. I guess I'm just not really sure how to feel about all of this.

Thanks for reading