Finally Diagnosed: Bipolar
My mental illness began when I was a child. My mother says she always knew there was something “wrong” with me, but didn’t help me. I know that I was always different from my friends and most comfortable when I was alone. My first diagnosis—depression—came when I was a teen. I was only briefly medicated and even then I didn’t take the medication correctly. My first psychiatric hospital stay happened at age 18. That was my first suicide attempt by overdosing. As well as I can remember, the focus became the drugs and I didn’t address a lot of mental health issues. I was hospitalized several more times throughout my life and dealt with, mainly, a diagnosis of depression. A string of other diagnoses occurred throughout the years, borderline personality disorder being one of them, and I saw many therapists and doctors off and on through the years and have been through more therapy than I care to remember. Each has his/her own diagnosis and pill prescription. Much of the time, I was not medicated and I dealt with the consequences of my illness on a regular basis. I self-medicated and saw the inside of many jails and treatment facilities. So, often my drug use and drinking was the focus—not my mental illness.
When I was 51, while I was in a mental health outpatient program, I was finally diagnosed correctly. I’d always had major depression issues but my manic side never manifested in front of doctors or therapists. This program was five days a week, all day long. My therapist there took the time to observe the differences in my behavior and asked me if I’d ever had a bipolar diagnosis. I hadn’t. Together, we researched bipolar disorder and agreed that, yes, I was bipolar. It was almost a relief. The disorder fit me to a tee and explained so much. Today, I am 58 and have been medicated for several years. There was quite a bit of experimenting with different medications but that has now evened out. I’ve been on the same main medication for awhile now and I’ve never been calmer or more rational. I’m going to grow old peacefully. Obviously, my point is that you should never give up; I’m so very glad that I didn’t.