[riley1789]

I'm new here. I'm 30 and was recently diagnosed with bipolar-1 after 15 years of being misdiagnosed with major depressive disorder. I'm amazed how much this disorder and the wrong treatment has ruined my life over the years.

For the past year and a half I was prescribed prozac and remeron for depression by my primary MD. I was faithful to the pill popping regimen since I have HIV and must take a bunch of other pills at the same time anyway. When I first started treatment for the depression I was solely prescribed prozac. I have been off and on prozac and other antidepressants over the years only to stop them when they became intolerable. As usual I went from down in the dumps to cloud 9(hypomanic) for about a month and a half. I told my doctor about this and he dismissed it. After that month and a half the hypomania dissapated and turned to full blown mania. I couldn't sleep, I was extremely aggressive, and irritable. I told my doctor about this and he added remeron to help me sleep. I seemed to be doing better for a few weeks and then I fell into a nasty depressive episode. After that I started cycling every few days. My apartment was either really clean and I got a million things done or I couldn't get out of bed and wanted to die because I was fat and ugly. It wasn't until I was diagnosed with bipolar and prescribed lamictal and did a bunch of research on bipolar and antidepressants that I realized I should stop taking them. I did and my cycling is definitely not as close together as it was and not as severe.

My mania seems to be well managed with the lamictal but i'm still having issues with the depressive episodes. When I get depressed I can't get away from thinking i'm fat, ugly, and no one will ever love me. I'm 6'2 and 185lbs. Feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness set in and it becomes very hard to get through these feelings. It doesn't help that I have very few friends left and tend to be alone a lot and unemployed. When I get depressed I just want to isolate and I don't let anyone in. I start to turn everything inward and blame myself and the fact that i'm not hot enough and never will be hot enough to make someone happy. I'm kind of a shallow and vane person which makes my self esteem issues worse when I become depressed.

[Anneinside]

It sounds like you need to get into counseling. A good therapist (tdoc) can help you with the bipolar and self esteem issues. I believe that you can't make it without medication from a pdoc and therapy from a tdoc. I have both and they each have their role in helping to keep me as stable as possible.

[BlackPup]

I was misdiagnosed as MDD for 7 years prior to my BP diagnosis 5 years ago. I understand your anger and pain due to the misdiagnosis. That said now you have a correct diagnosis you can now begin the journey to a stable mood. It can take some time to get the correct med combo and you may need some antidepressants as well as a mood stabilizer. I agree with the above post: a T is also necessary and may be more help with your self image problems. Good luck in your journey. Keep posting

[riley1789]

I'm definitely trying to find a new tdoc. The last one I had wasn't very helpful. A lot of the research I have read states that psychotherapy can be effective after the patient is stabilized. I'm assuming stabilized by meds.