Yes. I was mis-diagnosed with major depression (and treated with lots of different SSRIs, which are not good for bipolar in general) for over 10 years (diagnosed at 19 or 20; I'm 41 now). Finally, I got a good psychiatrist who decided she would not just blindly trust the previous doctor's diagnosis (which is what they all did, prior to her, accepted the initial psychiatrist's diagnosis). She diagnosed me herself, first with the obvious postpartum depression, since I'd recently given birth, though even on those notes, she had written stuff like bipolar? (I recently got the records from my years of treatment with her since she is retiring, had to pay practically a fortune as I saw her 10 years).

Anyway, she soon diagnosed me with bipolar II until I had an out and out fully manic episode in her waiting room & office on a scheduled appt. I barely avoided the hospital on that one. Then, she changed the diagnosis to bipolar I. My new psychiatrist was her colleague, he has been at that clinic as long as I saw my old doctor, so he didn't change her diagnosis except to add "with mixed features" though that possibility was listed in her diagnosis summation to her when I got my records, so she had been thinking about it apparently.

Now that I know about bipolar and its symptoms, if the first doctor had asked me all the right questions and in a couple different ways, he could have diagnosed bipolar easily. It makes me angry. I think all those years on SSRIs have messed up my brain/mind/thinking? permanently.