How can someone be diagnosed with bipolar and depression?

I am curious about different MI and this was one question I have been wondering about.

Note: I don't have an official diagnosis of depression and/or bipolar, but I feel like I have atypical depression.

Anyways, how is someone able to be diagnosed with both bipolar and depression? Is there a sub-type that says depressive mood for bipolar? I don't know how this works, so maybe people here will be able to give me an insight.

Thanks

Depression is depression. Bipolar is hypo/mania, depression and possibly mixed episodes.

What can happen, though, is that someone receives a diagnosis for depression, and then later they get a diagnosis for bipolar disorder, once it becomes clear to professionals that they have it. This often happens when someone has a bad reaction to an anti-depressant and becomes mixed or manic from it, but not always.

However the bipolar disorder would replace depression as their diagnosis.

Most of my episodes are mixed states, either irritable depression or dysphoric mania. You might consider researching mixed states/episodes to see if you identity with it, at all. My BP was hard to recognize as-such at first because of how mixed I was most of the time.

There are also 2 "types" of BP. There's BP1- the usua;i- super high to super low. Then there's BP2 which is kinda high, super low. That can appear as a diagnosis of BP and depression. I'm BP1, my daughter is BP2- as is my mom. Did I mention it's genetic?

Bipolar has two parts.... the UP of mania, and the DOWN of depression, as well as its two diagnoses: the BP1 with high mania, and the BP2 with hypomania. It's a twofer all the way around.

Of course, many of us start out with being diagnosed with depression, get fed an antidepressant, and then go off the deep end of mania -- voila, instant bipolar diagnosis!

^this....

And there is another subtype: bipolar disorder not otherwise specified (NOS). Thats when You might have traits of bp but its not full blown. Or even mood disorder NOS. My first dx was recurrent depression. Later mood disorder NOS and later bipolar (mainly mixed state). I think thats the sequence for the majority of us.

Also, when doctors give a bipolar diagnosis, there is a WHOLE long list of subcategories:

Psych Central - DSM Codes for Bipolar Disorder 296.01 296.02 296.03 296.4 296.41 296.42 296.43 296.51 296.52 296.53 296.61 296.62 296.63

Wow, ive never seen that summary. But I knew there are gradations in both mania and depression.

I didn't realize it really either until I paid close attention to the diagnostic codes my pdoc was using (which change from time to time as far as subcategories). Usually when I come out of the hospital, mine will say 296.62 or 296.63. The rest of the time it is usually 296.51 or 296.52. It's always either the depressed or mixed categories for me.

So let me get this straight: someone can't be diagnosed with both, correct? Many people get diagnosed with depression first and then that diagnosis goes away and becomes bipolar disorder. And of course, there are different categories of bipolar disorder. Thanks for your responses

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My first DX, (late teens) was depression and social anxiety. It took a long time to get to a BP DX.

I still battle depression most of the time. For me, Bipolar is primarily a depressive illness. After my hospitalization, my DX went from Bipolar unspecified, to Bipolar 1. I have no idea why.

Depression is a big part of bipolar, but I've never heard of someone holding both DX's simultaneously, unless they are by two different doctors, which is very possible.

I don't know. I just know that for some reason, I have seen people on here (random people) who claim to have both. Maybe it's just because of what state they are in, but. Or maybe because they believe to have bipolar disorder but are diagnosed with depression so.... idk. Thanks for your response

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It could be they originally had a depression diagnosis and don't realize that the bipolar diagnosis is instead of the bipolar diagnosis, not in addition to maybe. There is also the case where a therapist might use one diagnosis for insurance filing and the pdoc might use another and so they assume both really apply when probably it's just a matter than the two providers are just filing under different codes.

That would make a lot of sense. Thanks

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There is also the "most recent episode" thing you are diagnosed with. For me it is always "most recent episode mixed moderate or severe" (I have seen bipolar I in remission about twice for a couple weeks) but it can also be bipolar I or II, most recent episode depressed, severity _____, with or without psychosis.

I think the OP was talking about MDD vs. BP, not categories under BP.

Before it was called BP it was called manic depression. Both manic and depressed mostly altering but they can also coexist: mixed state.
Even if you are depressed most of the time and just once was (hypo)manic or mixed, you get diagnozed BP

Yeah, I was wondering about MDD vs BP but I am learning a lot about BP so....

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