doubt

Does anyone else ever doubt their diagnosis?

I've been told bipolar 2 by two different therapists along with close friends. My current therapist has said that I am not bipolar, just dealing with other issues... I don't know what to think anymore. I see correlations with both ideas and am struggling so hard with who to believe. So much of a diagnosis depends on how you phrase your words and what you choose to disclose. I sometimes wish that there was a test that was at least nearly conclusive as to whether or not I had bipolar or not. Sometimes I feel fine and sometimes I feel like I have never been fine. I just don't know what to think about my "diagnosis" anymore that I don't know how to deal with it all.

I know that I wish for a definitive dx, I am also dx BP2 but originally as depression & anxiety. Those different labels carry difference treatment approaches so it's unsettling for me thinking I may be being labelled & treated for something I many not have. I also feel fine on day, depressed another & frenetic the next but when feeling fine question the whole thing.

I think you have to develop a trusting relationship with your treatment team. Then you have to trust their assessment.

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Just a label , find a way to live to your full potential , med ,T, pdoc , whatever it takes for "you" , don't worry about the why or the title .... if you feel your "treatment" is not right for you seek a second opinion . I don't believe in doc shopping but I do believe we "know" what is right for us ... you have to be your own advocate ..... holiday peace to you ..

I doubted my dx for a long time. When I was first dx bipolar I was 18 and I laughed right in their faces. I was also enraged. How could I have bipolar when I never felt happy? Wasn't that part of it? As it turns out you don't have to have euphoria in mania. Most of my manias when I was a teenager manifested as mixed episodes. Mostly rage and unsafe, self destructive behavior. And then I had ECT and got better so I REALLY didn't believe them. I went without meds and therapy for six years. Naturally I thought my old doctors were the crazy ones.

When everything went south a couple of years ago the bipolar dx was brought up again. And though I knew something was wrong, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was just being dramatic and nothing was really wrong, that I was causing everything and if I could just quit being a baby I would be fine. I started having euphoric manias for the first time, but I still didn't believe the dx. It wasn't until I had my first psychotic episode that I believed it. When my brain snapped and sent me spiraling into paranoia is when I finally accepted I had a problem. And that it was real.

Now every time I want to quit my meds I remember that time and how terrified I was. I remember that this is real and that I don't want to play with fire.

It can take a long time to accept a dx like bipolar. It's up to you to decide if it fits. Reading other people's experiences help. If you can see yourself in other people's experiences you might indeed have bipolar.

The thing about MI is that no two people are alike, so the disease is never alike. That makes it hard to pin down, and symptoms can also come and go as well.

This is so similar to what I experienced, except I was 16 when I laughed in my pdoc's face, when she told me I was bipolar. I didn't have truly euphoric hypomania either, until the past 2 or so years. I did experience feelings of grandiose - I'd feel so much more intelligent than other people and that everyone was wrong. I can quote myself saying "anyone who knows bipolar disorder knows that you feel on top of the world, that everything's great, and then go to feeling like crap. But I'm always depressed! So how is that a mood swing? My psychiatrist is beyond stupid." My pdoc told me I was in such a bad state of mind that I needed to see my therapist that day, which I thought was purely ridiculous because I was "fine".

I had been misdiagnosed with clinical depression for so long that when I got a bipolar 1 diagnosis I was like, "What??" I had to have a long look at my past to figure out whether it fit or not. It did, despite all the other diagnoses I had as well.

It's hard, though, when different therapists don't agree. I can see where that can make things confusing.