Quote:
Originally Posted by cybermember
I have been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder; subtype bipolar: mixed episode. Basically it's psychosis (hallucinations and delusions) with a mood disorder (bipolar). When I'm not on meds my thoughts race at the speed of light. Everything is important with no differentiation in priority. I am hyperfocused. My speech is pressured and I go from one topic to the next because details are like tributaries to other details of other topics although others may not understand the correlation. When I'm on meds, my speech is less pressured and I am able to maintain the focus of a particular topic without being sidetracked with details of that topic. I still have some intermittent psychosis, but nothing nearly what I experienced off of meds.
I hope my explanation sheds some light to understanding my lack of focus and how I was initially diagnosed with ADHD. As a side note, I wasn't initially diagnosed with schizoafffective but with ADHD because I didn't reveal I was seeing, smelling or thinking odd things as I didn't think they were odd since they were an everyday occurrence for me. I honestly thought everyone had music playing in their head all the time and never thought to mention it until it started to get louder. I now know differently.
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Your experience is an example of why it is important to take the time to REALLY know the patient before they start slapping labels on. Diagnostic accuracy is really important in almost all cases.
For some illogical reason I haven't yet grasped, a lot of psychiatrists (usually PSYCHIATRISTS, but sometimes PSYCHOLOGISTS and other T's) practice a shake-n-bake form of diagnosis. As you would expect, this doesn't really work well.
I should clarify that I am not accusing your doctor of being one of these, but rather I mention this as it is sooooo important that people make sure that they are seeing highly trained and highly skilled pro's with experience in dealing with adult ADHD. One appointment is almost never enough. It often takes several and other conditions MUST be ruled out.
I hope you have your med situation squared away now!