Misdiagnosis - Readers Tell Their Stories

I starting acting differently when I was 24 years old.  I new that my moods were weird, I was cranky, irriatable, gritchy and scarcastic.  I made poor choices.  I took over the counter medication to calm me down.  I was depressed, euphoric, normal.  

I was over weight and then gained it.  I got married I was bairly 100 lbs.  I had a girlfriend and she was  "manic depressive'  When I asked her her symtoms, they were identical to mine! Since I was a nurse,I did reserch.  I told the doctor I had these symtoms.  Oh, you are fine, you are just stressed,  Wait 6 months, you are depressed, you hate your new husband and new daughter!  You have just had a servious breakdown is all.  No one believed me for 12 years.  When I started my Lithium, I was home, I was balanced and whole.  For the first time, I actually felt complete. 

Because of this, I have been able to help others with more compassion.

As I read through the other comments I feel so "at home".  I always knew that something was wrong with me in that I was not like other people. I felt alien - like someone standing outside her body looking in and not likeing or understanding what she sees - just knowing that whatever it was she saw, it was unfit.  Unfortunately I did not have a sunny wonderful childhood. My father was a violent, deeply disturbed man who scared me deeply and for life.  I always thought that my childhood was to blame for all my problems.  I never ever slept - that was the worse part for me, I can even remember that I did not sleep well as a small child and how desperate I became because of not sleeping night after night.  I tried to commit suicide a number of times - but I also blamed this on my father.  I had terrible rages where I actually violently attacked the people closest to me (I blamed this on my father because that was what I saw him do)  I had a terrible problem with drinking too much and then losing all my inhibitions and deeply embarrassing the people around me with my foul mouth.  I could paint through the night - 2 consecutive nights - without any sleep at all.  (I still paint - am actually much more creative on the medication - although it took about 2 years for my creativity to come back) I speeded like a manic, spended money and io the sex - and then that deathly numbing to-the-bone-painfully black depressions where all that you want to do is to evaporate - just disappear like a puff of smoke - without any evidence that you even existed at all.  Ireally thought that I was going mad and often asked my mother if she knows of any madness in our family.  Then my aunt died - at the funeral her sister told me that my aunt was bipolar and that all of them was so surprised that she passed away because she was doing so well on her medication. Thats when I also learned that my grandfather was an alcholic that committed suicide and that my great-grandmother was manic depressive (as they called it then) - I went to the library and started googling and when too many boxes got ticked - I went to my GP and he revered me to my wonderful psychiatrist and she diagnosed me.  I have been on medication for three years (I'm 42 and my life-long suffering is finally over).  I still get the manias but not the depressions - I'm using Lithium, Seroquel and Epitec and this is helping me a lot. I SLEEP!!!!! Thank the Good Lord and I am more creative and "sharp" than I ever was (my brain is POPPING I'm LOVING it!!)  I think it took so long for me to get diagnosed is because I had a horrible childhood and I thought as an adult I could just PLEASE GET OVER IT ALREADY!!! But nothing I did helped - no amount of exercise, correct eating, positve thinking, mind-over-matter-messages could help me. I used to get really angry with myself that I could let this horrible man controle me - even from his grave because his dead - but I just couldn't hack it.  Now, being diagnosed and "healed" on medication - I have a wonderful live and my family understands and forgave me for every horrible thing that I said and did when I was ill.  I have stopped drinking and have lost 45 pounds (the litium and seroquel did pack on the pounds unfortunately) I have all these amazing ideas for paintings and I am completely happy.  I will never ever go off the medication and I "worship" my psychiatrist - and then of course this website helps because I can actually see that there are other people just like me and that we can do fine if we get help.  I'm really really pissed-off that there is still such a huge stigma concerning the disease - but you know what? #*@%$*&?// them, that's their problem.  The moral of the story - if you think somethings wrong, there probably is, so, get diagnosed, get medicated and live long and prosper!! 

At age 26, I was going through what I think was probably post-partum psychosis.  After having to have a hysterectomy 7 mo. after my son was born, I was transferred from the med/surg unit to the psych ward because I tried disconnecting and pulling out all of my tubes and the IV.

The psychiatrist in the hospital was told by my mother that "manic-depression" and schizophrenia run in my dad's family, and that maybe that's what I had too.  Even given that information, the pdoc didn't listen.  Instead, he assigned me to a religious zealot for a therapist, and the 2 of them together decided that I had 'multiple personality disorder'.  They treated me for 3yrs by having me go for "therapy" 5 times a week, gave me really strong antipsychotics, antidepressants, and other drugs, and had me go through 3 "amytol interviews" (basically meaning that they weren't satisfied with my not having any real success trying to recal "repressed memories" (because I didn't have any!).  Somehow through these "interviews" and lots of hypnosis, "memories" started surfacing, and even though when I was away from the therapist and somehow always feeling that these things weren't right at all, those are the things she insisted on treating me for. 

After 3 yrs, I finally gathered the strength from within to break away from that therapist, but by that time, I had no faith or trust in the mental health profession.  I avoided, denied, lied about, ignored, pretended, and even convinced myself at times, that I didn't have any kind of mental illness whatsoever.  I also continued having episodes of mania and depression both, but discounted them as nothing more than "quirks" in my basic personality. 

11 years later, after several traumatic events in a single year, that included (among other things) my fiance being hit by a drunk driver, the 2 of us going through a very stressful move - 1700 miles to another state, and the death of my father, I was a basket case.  I still waited another 2 1/2 yrs after that to finally admit to myself and my fiance that I needed help.  I also knew for myself by this time that I was probably bipolar....or possibly schizophrenic, since both run in my family. 

We soon made another out of state move, and once there, I started going to the community mental health center.  The first one had a pdoc that must have been on the lazy side, because he gave me an "evaluation" that lasted about 20 minutes, then diagnosed me as having SOME kind of personality disorder - "personality disorder NOS", even though I told him I probably had bipolar.  I spent 8 months going there until a new center opened up in town.  After transferring, because I was so unsatisfied with the first place, the pdoc at this center finally diagnosed my bipolar disorder. 

All telling, from the first signs of having it, that began when I was around 14, at age 44 I finally got diagnosed with 'R/O bipolar spectrum disorder' and "R/O schizophrenia".  I've only been going there for 4 mo. now, and am finally being evaluated for my actual disorder.  Whether it's bipolar or schizophrenia, I no longer fear either, because I'm for once confident that I'm in the right place to get the treatment I need.  I was impatient at first, not being given a full diagnosis right away, but have learned, and come to really appreciate the fact, that this new pdoc is putting in the work that it takes to actually GIVE somebody a true, fully evaluated diagnosis.  I'm also finally on some meds that are doing some good.

As a young child, I knew I was different.  Either I was very happy or very sad.  Every one said I was just a moody kid and teenager.  I went to many child psychologists but they never really did anything.  I also had some feeble suicide attermpts at this time, but no one knew what they were.  When I went to sleep away camp one year, the subject of bi-polar was brought up to me.  I broached it to my parents but they said I was crazy and someone was putting ideas in my head.  Later on, in college, I developed agoraphobia and was pit on buspar.  I thought finally, the answer to my problem.  It wasn't, of course.  In 1999, I had a severe manic episode that landed me in a psych ward on  Long Island.  I was finally diagnosed and what a relief it was.  I finally knew I wasm't crazy and it wasn't all in my head.  I'm not saying that since I've been diagnised that's all been easy, it hasn't.  It took quite a while to find the right meds and I was a real witch until they found the right thing, going in and out of hospitals about once every 12-13 months.  But thank goodness, I am now stable and leading a relatively normal life.