I am devastated - TRIGGERING BIG TIME

Tonight (Sunday night Australia) on Australian 60 Miniutes was a story about a young woman, a successful journalist with loving parents and a loving husband took her life three years a go. There has been a Coroner's Inquest (they take a long time) and there is going to be a change in the law as pertains to what happened to her. The Inquest found that she had been incorrectly diagnosed as Major Depression when she was in fact Bipolar - diagnosed and treated as such for years and treated with anti-depressants. She moved through several doctors because she was getting sicker and sicker all the time and then she took her life.

The change in the law will require ALL psychiatrists in Australia (I hope it's all of Australia, not just one state) to screen EVERY SINGLE PATIENT who presents for Major Depression to see whether they may have Bipolar. This is a huge leap forward and hopefully should get loads of people at least onto the Bipolar guineau pig meds treadmill so they can progress towards the best meds mix possible as well as more appropriate therapy. (It's just part of the deal having to do all that as far as I am concerned - I'm a guineau pig!!)

My distress is this. I too was initially diagnosed as Unipolar Depression but after I moved from that first psychiatrist onto the second one, after some months she correctly diagnosed me with Bipolar. However, she continued prescribing me SSRI's and for me, even with mood stabilisers, SSRI's were CONTRAINDICATED for me and I got sicker. So, like the woman I have spoken of, I went to another psychiatrist and he also kept prescribing SSRI's and I got sicker, so I ended up with another psychiatrist and he too prescribed me with SSRI's - all of these while adding mood stabilsers, but it clearly, in retrospect was all wrong for me. I lost my career, my house, my friends and family and all my passions and then nearly my life.

This is where I came in. I made a 100% serious attempt - I intended to die. But a gazillion modern miracles of medicine kept me alive through a 5 day coma. Fast forward. I see my treating psychiatrist at the time for the first time since I had seen him before the Act. I asked him whether there is any "de-briefing" of him after a patient has made a fully serious attempt and survived to establish what went wrong, what might be done better etc. He said Yes, and bang. That was it - no explaination of the accountability measures that are in place for people that have our lives in their hands and whose prescribing decisions means the difference between life and death. And he still kelp me on SSRI's - I was always 100% compliant and didn't know they were contraindicated so I just kept being compliant.

I am hysterically crying tonight because the 60 Minutes story made me ask a question (and don't worry, I'm not suicidal). The question is, do I have tio DIE, ****ing DIE to get the privledge of a Coroner's INQUEST?????? Is there no ****ing accountability for people who prescribe high octane psychiatric medication every day? Does all the risk rest with me??

A post note. I moved away from where I was then three months later and found an amazing psychiatrist who very soon established that SSRI's are contraindicated for me - mood stabilisers or not. Had he not, I'd be dead now. He also introduced another medication last year which also saved me life - so with him, I'm lucky. There are so few good psychiatrists - and of course I'm now moving away to another town - for good reasons - but I'll lose my whole wonderful psych team and my wonderful GP - but I was successful in getting two Total and Permanent Disability claims so have bought a little home and am moving as I need to get away from family..

I had 7 years misdiagnosed as MDD, on really high doses of SNRIs, and getting worse, my GP was not willing to refer me to a psych, until I kicked up a fuss and then I was predictably diagnosed as BP... I had asked him about BP but he said it didn't matter coz it was treated the same way - what an idiot!!!! maybe I should put in a complaint into the medical board.

Same thing, SSRI's for Bipolar patients can be diabolocal. The conventional wisdom is that they are OK for Beepers if you are given mood stabilisers, but that was clearly not the case for me.

I'm in Australia and I have gone the full gamut of who you can make compaints to and I am at the stage now where I have all four relevent patient files. I have read through 2 with my therapist and will read through the last two. Then I will copy the lot and pass it onto a mental illness advocacy agency I have established contact with. They will review it and see see whether there's enough there to send it to a lawyer who works on a no win no pay basis (incidendentaly this is a lawyer I have used for othert things). So I would suggest you start to seek out what compaints mechanisms there are through the Government, and then if you have no luck there, see if there are any mental illness advocacy organisations that can help.

THAT, in an of itself IS a major step forward. TG!!! I too had the misdiagnosis and mismedication nightmare lasting 3 years. I was worse than ever before, by a long shot and that's saying something. It's good to know that they at least recognize that there's a big problem there. A matter of life and death. No exaggeration, as you well know. (As a sidenote.... my MDD diagnosis was "screened" for BP with 3 words... "so, no highs?" Had NO idea WTF she was on about. 3 words. Hardly know how to express my... I don't even know what... words fail... about that.

Wasn't 3 years of THEIR life, that's for sure. So hear you on that.

I really like that new law. It would help a lot of people who have bipolar but don't present for years as bipolar.

I learned that the news triggers me all the time, so I stopped following it. I wrote about it in my blog (link in my signature) if you want to read about it.

I was also initially diagnosed with MMD w/psychotic features prior to my current diagnosis of ptsd and bipolar. Seems to be a default diagnosis.

Stay strong, it will get better!

vs, I too get triggered by the news and currrent affairs and very often have to make a very clear disengagement. But in this case, as painful as this is, I needed to have seen that story -knowledge is power.

To everyone, Gooood it' so good hearing like stories from Fellow Travellers. (No that I would want you to have suffered as I have). It is true human suffering and it nothing short of tragic.

It sounds like a really great new act, and I'm holding thumbs it comes together.
I'm sorry you were so triggered, but it seems you learnt a lot and had a lot of time to work through some emotions - hats off to you.
You can do it- we're right behind you.
SSRI's hardly work for me, so even though I was first dx'd with Major Depressive Episode, I was ok for a year on SSRI's going forward. Now I feel the mood stabiliser alone is not enough for me....

Maybe this is wrong, but I would encourage everyone hear to learn everyting you can about the ssris, If you know how they act with you, refuse to take them, ask to get a second opinion, give a detailed report on how they affect oyou, and demand to be put on something else. I was put on serzone and had to fight like H- to be taken off. It was making me hallucinate, was bringing my dissociative tendencies out into near psychosis, and the pdoc was saying it was just because I was bipolar and didn't want to take my meds. I was sent to another Pdoc who immediateliy took me off. Turns out that the medication was also contraindicated for Beepers for that reason. collect the facts and stick to your guns if it means you have to dump the physician's desk refence in the doc's lap. (might be painful, but garanteed to get his (if he) attention)! end of sermon. Huggs all.

loneangel, you are right on. I'm an educated woman per se, but I wasn't educated aboutt he effects of SSRI's on some Bipolar patients, thus, this went on for 6 years, with me a fully compliant patient as I always am, enabling maximum damage to to my brain, my functioning, all ther losses I incurred and then near death. And I now KNOW that this takes peoples' lives around the world every day. I wish I'd known then. So when I post about this, it is the vent my fury and grief over what has happened, but also in the spirit of educating others in a similar situation so they don't take YEARS to find out about the mis-prescribing.

while ssri's can be terrible especially on their own for BPs, they have been sucessfully used independantly in some patients with mild illness, also they can be really good in conjunction with mood stabilisers. For me mood stabilisers alone are not enough... but everyone is different.
I would suggest to be aware of what drugs you are on and how you are doing and if things aren't working then ask you doctor for a med change, if they don't listen then get a second opinion cos as we can see from this thread, not all doctors are good! Like Wendy says, it shouldn't take years for the doctors to try something else rather than pumping higher doses of something that isn't working into you...

I have a question here .I have been taking ssri's many different ones over say 30 years none have worked ,my dx as far as i know has been MDD could it be possible I have been misdiagnosed and be bipolar.I don't have many highs so to speak once in a great while I can be up for 24 or 48 hours what I call wired and tired but not like overly confident or anything but maybe a little better mood.But more so I am overly fatigued and depressed feel helpless,hopeless etc..My depression has also costs me dear time and I believe my closest relationships due to being such a downer to be around..

I was on prozac twice, and both times became very ill. The last time if it hadn't been for my husband I would have killed myself. I can't remember much about it... I remember the start of the day, but not the end of it, only waking up with my husband sitting up in bed watching me. I was so scared of doctors that he didn't in the end call an ambulance, but kept an eye on me for days while I "came down" cold turkey off prozac. I wouldn't touch it now with a barge pole. That was when I was wrongly diagnosed.

I was put on various cocktails that contained ssri/snris along with anti-psychotics. Effexor, cymbalta and wellbutrin all caused me to disassociate and drove me to such terrifying altered states where I thought the only option was suicide. I am lucky to still be here.

My best friend is not, he was prescribed effexor and a adhd med along with his lamictal as he was going through such a rough depression for so long, but was not suicidal. Within a month he took his life.

We saw the same pdoc, I decided to go off my meds at this time because I knew they were making me worse, and killed my best friend and the doc tried to section 12 me. My husband and I ended up having to go on an impromptu "vacation" out of state to avoid getting me locked up in a hospital for "non-compliance" it was awful.

Eventually I went back into therapy at a different clinic, and have been with this therapist for a year now. I am still scared of pdocs and only sort of trust my treatment team, but I'm still afraid of being sectioned.

Gosh, yagalada... that kind of thing is why I was so scared of doctors for so long. I'm sorry you had to go through that. Have you explained to your current doc the bad effects you had with SRI's?

It could be possible. A person with Bipolar II suffers from major depression more often than hypomania. The hypomanic episodes tend not to last long and aren't as severe as full blown mania. My suggestion is to start tracking your mood and then discuss with your pdoc. I use this online one: http://www.medhelp.org/land/mood-tracker

Yes definitely! I actually told my family doc as well because I am afraid of having any more reactions to any medications.

At first, when I was correctly diagnosed. The pdoc I had put me on a ton of meds that turned me into a zombie. After 9 days I went off the meds and decided that she was scary. (I realize now that she was trying to keep me out of the hospital by having me come in every day and tweaking meds, but she didn't explain herself so I got scared). After that I went to another p-doc and told him what had happened. He went with the bp diagnosis and put me on just topamax. For some reason it made me crazy and I ended up in the hospital where they changed it to Trileptal. I went back into the hospital soon after because I was severely depressed and suicidal, so they added Prozac. It was amazing. It took me right out of my suicidal depression. After lots of tweaking and mor hospital stays, the cocktail I am on seems to work, with a little breakthrough that may last a day or two. I am on depakote, Seroquel, Prozac, and Trazodone as needed for sleep.
If I could lose the darn weight, I think I would be even better.