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Blue

Glad your visit with the new psychiatrist went well.

Remember psychiatrists are human and can make mistakes. As mine reminds me, you can have every mental illness that is written and when I go to sites like SANE and read the illnesses I see that in me. They only need for you to have I think it is 5 of the symptoms to have that illness in the DSMIV. You can still have different illnesses under the DSMIV as I do - depression, GAD, OCD, sucidal tendencies/thoughts, phobias - see how it is easy to make a diagnosis as if you fit the 5 symptoms you can have lots of illnesses. Don't blame your old psychiatrist. He diagnosed and treated you based on the things you told him at each session and you have obviously told the new psychiatrist different information for him to come up with bipolar, mixed state. Have a look at the SANE site to see if they have anything about the mixed state.

Perhaps because you felt comfortable with the new psychiatrist you were able to explain things differently for him to come up with this diagnosis. Keep seeing your psychologist as they help you work on things and the psychiatrist will monitor your health/medications.

Good luck with the new diagnosis/medications. I don't think it was a misdiagnosis - more what things you told your old psychiatrist for him to come up with that diagnosis. As I said, you didn't have good rapport with him and perhaps the consultations were one sided - him talking and not much from you.

Go Blue!!!

Mrs Studying1

Written by studying1, 9. Jul 2008 07:41 PM

Yes, I have, and I had a similar reaction to you. It resonated perfectly with the chaos/symptoms I was feeling. Since I got the diagnosis and was put on bipolar meds instead of anti-depressants I was improving within a matter of weeks as opposed to no luck with two and a half years on various depression/anxiety meds.

One thing I was advised to do is to make sure I do some reading and see if I agree. If you think about the two different diagnoses you have received (depression/anxiety with traits of BPD and bipolar in a mixed state) some of the symptoms actually overlap to some degree or another. The thing that some psychiatrists, particularly ones who have worked a lot in the public system and/or are older is that they don't have much awareness on personality disorders - or this is the way it was explained to me by a different doctor. I think because of the subjectivity of symptoms, we'll probably always get some variation across doctors according to their teaching, opinions, etc.

However, in my opinion I think the label you're given is secondary to having a psychiatrist that you have faith in and a good rapport with. I changed psychiatrists to one I had a better relationship with, and that has been much more important to my progress than the fact he has a different label for me. To me, it sounds like you feel you would have better progress with the new psychiatrist. Perhaps see what you're psychologist says?

Written by babz, 9. Jul 2008 07:48 PM

I just want to say thanks so much for your comments, I feel like I have a better perspective on things.

:) xxoo
Bluewave

Written by bluewave, 10. Jul 2008 01:02 PM