Changed Diagnosis; Feeling Twitchy About It

I recently experienced my first full-blown manic episode [well, at currently experiencing]. I was originally tentatively diagnosed BPII in October of last year, had my first hypomanic episode in December. Definitely rapid cycling. Had moods tracked almost like [but not in accordance to or concurrent with] menstrual cycles: two weeks +/- four days. Mixed episodes were four weeks +/- eight days. It was literally a nearly perfect pattern. And I'd hit the four mood cycles criterion into late April, where I finally stabilized into late June. Then a physiologically triggered Conversion Disorder episode ripped that apart, then stomped on its remains, just to add insult to injury.

From the middle or end of July, I popped up in hypomania and stayed there for a while. The episode ended, or I called the end, when the stutter stopped on the 26th of August of this year. The hypomania eventually subsided. Somewhere mid-September, but the episode forced me to quit both jobs, neither of which I could get back, and sixteen other places have since rejected me despite havingnothingon my resume indicating anything strange.

Three weeks... maybe a month... ago, it looked like hypomania at first, but it was so much more intrusive. I couldn't focus on anything, I was so much angrier than normal [I'm an angry person in general, but I was in a state of rage 50% of the time], I was up for two days at a time, sleeping for 3-5 hours before being up for two days again and being completely fine. I'd be hyper as all hell, social... but also angry. I'd snapped at people, yelled at people...maliciously. I'm usually very careful with choosing my actions, but it felt like I had no choice. It just.. happened.

They changed the dx to BP "NOS". I told the doc I was nervous about the BPI Dx in the US, so on the record, it says NOS. Everywhere else, "Bipolar Affective Disorder", which is a term commonly used in the UK/Australia/etc. meaning BPI. I... feel like the new doc [a PA, but wtf ever] was softening the blow for me a bit, giving me a chance to adjust.

I don't know. I'm just not sure how to feel. I'm nervous about missing that extra "I" behind my bipolar diagnosis. It was safer. It's still without psychotic features, but still. I swear docs see a "BPI" and automatically treat you like less than a person here. It happened even with my BPII, but I also have four other Dx'd disorders. >->

I remember when my diagnosis went from BPII to BPI. At the time it felt like a really big deal, but now it feels like a non-issue. My outpatient doctors treat me the same way as they did when I was II and not I. When inpatient my doctors tend to emphasize how severe my case is, which is sort of distressing, but once I'm out it's business as usual. You can live just as well with BPI as BPII.

I understand. I've just gone from "Depression" to "Bipolar 2". Bipolar ANYTHING right now is very confusing.

hmmmm. Diagnosis is a subjective thing. Bipolar I is somewhat stigmatizing, but...speaking as someone who has been diagnosed with worse ("Oppositional Defiant Disorder," "Narcissistic Personality Disorder," "malingering," on and on it goes...), I kind of came to see my Bipolar I (w/ psychotic features in my case, btw) diagnosis as something of a relief from all the stigma of my old diagnoses.

Now, "Schizophrenia..." that one's stigmatizing. I've been diagnosed with that, too. Bipolar I --is-- considered severe, but its also within the range of "we'll treat you like a human being," if you get what I'm saying. Once they pull out the "Schizophrenia" and related disorders, its over. All antipsychotics, all the time. To be labeled as "Schizophrenic" is be the ultimate in The Other, the outsider.

Again: trust me. I live in a small, southern area, and even though my actual diagnosis is Bipolar I, I'm labeled Schizophrenic. Bipolar, at least, is a diagnosis; Schizophrenia is more of a social role, and not a fun one.

Try not to worry too much. Things could be much, much worse.

Well, I have bipolar 2, but my thought is that getting the right treatment is more important than the diagnosis.