[Switch]

It's a question that's been rattling around in my brain for a bit. My only official diagnosis is BP2 and an unspecified learning dissability, but I know, and the doctors know, that there's more.

I have another appointment at the end of the month to see YET ANOTHER BP specialist, but the last appointment I had the doc's drew a venn diagram to show my parents what I looked like... SO MANY CIRCLES!

They suggested BP2 (although highly abnormal), ADD, and a personality disorder (although that one came way out of left field for me, my T, and my parents, and my aunt who's a doctor and been working closely with getting me treatment). My T and others in my life says I definitely have a dissociative disorder (I agree... it's hard to miss), and I have a lot of symptoms of social phobia and the starting of agoraphobia. I refuse to tell professionals about my religious beliefs because they might misdiagnose as psychosis (they're strange, I admit, but there's a lot of theology behind it!), and I don't want to tell anyone about my sleeping issues because I don't want to get diagnosed with narcolepsy because then I lose my license. And I just put up with chronic pain because I have other things to focus on. Other people have mentioned PTSD symptoms to me, but I don't even want to think on that because there's so many things that are apparently wrong with me!

Seriously! It's getting frustrating... I miss when I was just bipolar, and I feel attention seeking with so many labels attached! I feel with so much going on in my head, I can't possibly get help! My T wants to help me with dissociation, and all I want to do is be able to leave the apartment and go to school, or start work again, and stop feeling like I need to be beaten for leaving the house messy! BP has seemed to be left in the dust, and it's just so frustrating because it's still apart of my life! An hour for T only covers what has been going on in my week, and there's not enough time to get help for everything.... frack, I agree that there's a lot going on, but I just can't seem to get the help I need because there's TOO MUCH! (and the long wait before the next appointment is no help...)

Well, that's the end of that rant. I think it made me feel better just to get all of that out there.

Anyway, that's my thoughts on that. Help anyone? Any experience, or any idea of how to streamline things so I can actually start making progress? I just want to move on with my life, get back to school, and be able to live without calling my mom four times a day for company doing grocery shopping, or because I can't move again.

(I accidentally put this in General Chat, sorry! Moved it myself to here)

[EvangelinesLost]

I know exactly how you feel, i have been to 3 doctors and 3 different therapists and i have been diagnosed with soo many things it is not even funny. and it is very hard to fit everything into an hour session once every week, it is frustrating and annoying and it makes me want to rip my hair out sometimes--

My best advice to you is write down a list of the things you want to talk to your therapist about, and write notes about what you want to say about each thing, then when you are with your therapist breeze through it, give her the list to review so the next session, you can both cover more grounds and actually make progress. Also try to get medication for your BP2 and then with the therapy i think with time people will let the other diagnosis fade away.

Much love and luck

Definately agree with evangeline about writing a list - at least then you can prioritise your main concerns and hopefully start getting some answers. It took me forever to get diagnosed and even then i still think i don't have the full picture. At least two seperate doctors have said i show traits of asperger's syndrome but my current psychiatrist refuses to believe my current diagnosis (which was made by a private clinician) let alone anything else i might have.

My psychiatrist also said that some forms of treatment can cover several illnesses at once (in the same way that a single drug is used to treat a lot of illnesses) so it doesn't matter all that much what my individual problems are - this is something i personally disagree with but i wanted you to know that your not alone in just wanting to get on with recovery and reclaim your life. I hope your appointment goes well, keep us posted

[*freak*]

Is getting diagnosed in such a minutious and precise manner useful for insurance purposes? Because otherwise, I'd like to suggest you don't "obsess" too much over labels. Because usually our disorders are caused by the same issues (and probably the way we've dealt with them when we weren't equipped to do so appropriately). For example, I'm an ACOA, which caused social anxiety, which caused depression. All of this caused an infinite (ok, let's say very long :P ) amount of other symptoms and dysfunctional behaviours (EDs, PDs, phobias, etc...) but if I were to count them and list them all... they would depict a quite frightening image.

What I'm trying to say is that many times when a person has mental health problems there's so many symptoms that can be interpreted in so many ways by so many different specialists... that how you're labeled and in how many ways they label you is important, of course, but don't let it frighten you or upset you too much.

You have issues. Address those issues. If you've been diagnosed with a few major things you're already aware of and a gazillion other things that don't really make a difference to you whether they're called X or Y... my advice woud be work on the major things. The marginal ones will likely resolve themselves as the healing process advances

I wish you luck

[roads]

Epilepsy can lose you your license not narcolepsy!

Narcolepsy can often be helped with maybe a nasal clip/oxygen at night and voila!--a good night's sleep!

((((switch))))

[di meliora]

When you cannot support them with necessities.