This may be long, so if y’all just want the key info pertaining to my question, skip to the last couple paragraphs.
When I was 13 I was diagnosed as bipolar disorder after a suicide attempt. I wasn’t actually given psychological testing to get this diagnosis; it was based on my parents telling a psychiatrist about my mood swings/temper tantrums that started when I was 11 years old. By 16 years old my psychiatrist had found a medicine that seemed to “work” for me that didn’t have any crazy side effects: Lamotrigine.

When I was 20 I moved out of state all on my own. The new psychiatrist I started seeing questioned my bipolar diagnosis, but I insisted I keep taking the lamotrogine because my parents & childhood psychiatrist said bad things would happen if I stopped taking the medicine (they made it seem like I’d go into mania and become addicted to drugs and do other life-ruining things).
A year after that I switched psychiatrists because my insurance changed. The new psychiatrist also doubted my bipolar diagnosis, but I was still scared to stop taking the lamotrigine.

Another year later I moved states again and therefore switched psychiatrists again. This new psychiatrist also said I don’t fit the bipolar description and I was at a point in my life where I felt comfortable weaning off the lamotrigine.
A year after I started seeing him he wanted me to get psychological testing done for ADHD. The psychologist who administered the testing said my IQ was too high to have ADHD, but that I have depression.
So they started me on Wellbutrin and I suppose it’s helped with my random depression cycles.
In August I agreed to let a residency student be my psychiatrist so he can get experience. From our first encounter he noted strong signs of ADHD. So he put me on Ritalin.
Fast forward to this month. He was asking if I’ve ever had a manic episode. I told him the closest thing I can think of is when my childhood psychiatrist put me on Latuda for a month when I was 16. I remember feeling my thoughts rushing and swear words invaded my vocabulary on that medicine. It felt like my brain was soup being stirred pretty fast. As soon as I stopped taking Latuda I felt like my normal self again.
After disclosing this experience to the residency psychiatrist, he said I very well may actually be bipolar, because apparently even having one manic episode makes you bipolar. He was talking too fast for me to correct some of the key points that support his theory, so I just politely declined his offer to do a trial run on Lithium.

Is it true having one manic episode makes you bipolar? Shouldn’t the circumstances surrounding the episode also be considered before making a diagnosis?