Well I suffer a lot of symptoms of poor mental health. For many years I was treated for depression by psychologists and performed according to a pretty high work standard. I functioned but I wasn't happy.

Then a gp sent me to a psychiatrist for chronic pain who decided i had 'somatoform disorder' and gave me a high dose antidepressant (60 mg of celexa). Then I had a manic episode for the first time accompanied by severe trigeminal neuralgia type symptoms that were eventually addressed after many days in a psych ward with Tegretol...

Anyway after I got the diagnosis of bipolar no one has ever questioned it except me. Unfortunately my overall physical and mental health (I do believe these are closely connected) deteriorated in what I would call a hostile environment.

I've also had a cancer diagnosis and treatment and have unfortunately a myriad of other health problems in the last years too [although the chronic pain largely resolved with lyrica and not sitting at a desk anymore]. Lots of anxiety now and panic attacks for the first time.

I am definitely not a well person but I still don't know if it is really bipolar that is my main problem in life or rather that I have a trauma reaction from childhood and from life. (When your psychiatrist of many years says that your last decade of life has been a tragedy.)

What bugs me most about the diagnosis is that it seems as most people pigeon hole you and even though all psychiatric ailments are more or less mysteries think they know everything about you because 'you are bipolar'.

I think another part is that it is much more stigmatizing to have bipolar than to have depression ... no doubt about it.

But there is no denying that many trained people think this is what I have. For me it has been an unhelpful diagnosis in the sense that it hasn't led to me feeling better ... just surviving.