So Many Diagnoses

My mental health struggles date back to elementary school, almost 20 years ago, when either my parents, myself, or some combination started to notice how anxiety was impacting my day-to-day life. In that time, doctors have either posited or formally diagnosed me with a handful of conditions based on my description of symptoms. Medications have been in the picture since I was 19. Bipolar Disorder had never been mentioned as a possibility until I found myself in the hospital, where an entire team of mental health professionals could evaluate me and sift through my medical records.

In no particular order, I've been diagnosed with: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Depression, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and Bipolar Disorder. A doctor has never said this to me, but I've come to believe the conditions I was diagnosed with prior to my hospitalization were early manifestations of bipolarity. Because of how all the conditions seem to overlap and fall under similar umbrellas, it's hard for me to say I was misdiagnosed.

When I was suffering from OCD before and during puberty, I used to obsessively count, add, and factor numbers to relieve anxiety from irrational fears of my parents dying. I sought help for ADHD in my early 20's because my brain felt spacey, which made it hard to focus and accomplish what I wanted to get done. In hindsight, symptoms of both mania and depression seem clear to me in both cases. But they were presenting in different ways at different stages in my development, making it hard to spot an overarching condition.

It took a crisis for me to get answers, and that is as frustrating as it is scary. It's easy to look back and wonder how things might have turned out if someone had been able to recognize symptoms of Bipolar Disorder. I choose not to for a couple of reasons: 1) I enjoy my life, and 2) I don't want to blame doctors. I've learned Bipolar Disorder is exceptionally nuanced. If not for other factors, I might have never been properly diagnosed.

When I was hospitalized, I had constant access to mental health professionals who had time to build a profile through existing records, interviews, and observation. In the real world, outpatient psychiatry appointments can take weeks or months to book and only last about 20-30 minutes once every 30 days. There's no time to develop a rapport and unearth new information. Instead, in my experience, it's a churn and burn process hyper-focused on prescribing. And that should be convenient for the patient, assuming the diagnosis on file is accurate.