I do agree with what you wrote about the DSM-5, bpcyclist. As I wrote (yesterday?) I agree with my psychiatrist that we don't all fit neatly into any "category" and that we have our own flavors of the disorder, if it's even the same disorder, which the DSM-5 defines mostly for some shape and form of a guide and....insurance codes. $$$$ Which I'm sure you know a lot about!

I'm so sorry to read that you had tonic clonic seizures. They are dangerous and scary. I know about them well, since my mother had them, regularly, most of her life. If I have had seizures, mine would seem to fit into the focal seizure category (psychic or sensory simple partials). I have read that some medications that people with bipolar disorder take can cause tonic clonic seizures, but surely rarely. I even wonder if the trauma some of us experience can bring them on. If I have had the focal partial seizures, I haven't a clue why. All I know is that my carbamazepine ER (Tegretol XR) seems to have stopped them long-term, and is also beneficial, to a degree, for my bipolar disorder.

Once I went to a consulting psychiatrist that also focuses on neurology. She flat out told me that bipolar episodes could very well be unique types of seizures. It's actually quite uncanny the similarities there can be between the two disorders. Way beyond just the common use of anticonvulsants. I could go on and on about them.