I've spent my life believing I was just bipolar than out of the blue my Mom tells me I have a personality disorder. That a doctor when I was 16 told her that. How come no one has ever told me that? I'm not sure what to think or do. I know that when I then up I have psychopathy as well as more but reading things on the interested doesn't help. I can't go to my psychiatrist till I have the money because my visits ran out of the year so I have to wait till november. I just would like so more information. I am crazy, I know that. I talk in circles, I act out a lot and then there are times when I get quiet and just want to sit. I care more about others than I do myself. I would sadly do anything for anyone in need. I just don't know what I am. Sometimes I fit bipolar, something I don't. Is it possible to be both?

[vonmoxie]

Was this a doctor you spent much time with, in order that a skilled diagnosis could even be made, and who had the expertise to make that diagnosis? Does your mom not recall which personality disorder they supposedly said you have?

Because it sounds like it might just as easily have been something a doctor told her might be indicated, which without doing proper diagnostic work (which I'd think you'd recall if it happened) is all they really could have told her. Maybe you want to try looking the old doc up, if you can and if it's not going back too many years, to find out what if anything is on record. Outside of that I really wouldn't worry about it though, as your mom's offhand late retelling of this old info doesn't seem all that reliable. It's not that easy to accurately diagnose a 16-year old in the first place anyway (but very easy to misdiagnose); we're all pretty volatile at that point in life, with personalities still forming.

[Rapunzel]

Ok, for one thing, having a personality disorder does not equate to being a psychopath. If you were diagnosed at 16, the diagnose can't be antisocial personality disorder because that one is not diagnosable prior to at least age 18, and that is the one that corresponds to what we think of as psychopathy. The other personality disorders could be diagnosed at 16, but with caution because teenagers are still developing their personalities and because the symptoms of some personality disorders are actually fairly normal for teenagers and you can grow out of it. So, a personality diagnosis at 16 is by no means permanent or definitive. It also doesn't mean a lot to say that someone has a personality disorder without specifying which one, or the traits that are relevant, because they are all so different.

It is possible to have a personality disorder and bipolar or other mental health disorders. Bipolar disorder usually consists of acute symptoms that occur during episodes and when not having an episode, most of the symptoms may disappear. Personality disorders are longstanding patterns of behavior that are learned during childhood, often early, and generally are adaptive to the conditions that you grew up in but become disorders when you are an adult and those behaviors no longer fit your circumstances but it is difficult to change what you have learned and done for your whole life. For a lot of people with bipolar disorder, they may have remissions from the bipolar disorder symptoms and it is when those symptoms are under control that the personality disorder shows up.