The nurse practitioner I’m seeing about my ADHD diagnosed me with bipolar disorder
She literally could not have surprised me more if she tried
This makes no sense to me but it’s scaring me a lot :(
I don’t really remember having manic episodes? Depressive maybe but it’s usually after something bad happens to me and not really consistently…
I told her I put off making this appointment cuz I’ve been feeling really bad recently, then she just asked me a few questions like if people say I talk too much sometimes or if I do things impulsively and prescribed me an antipsychotic (aripiprazole) wtf
I asked some family and they haven’t noticed anything like this… idk :(. Has this happened to anyone else? Am I just in denial? I’m afraid to take this drug she gave cuz I really don’t need to be even more tired all the time… or tardive dyskinesia or something (unlikely, worst case)
Yeah. I have Bipolar II. Depression is much more prominent than in BPI. I have extremely long periods of severe depression - Weeks, but more often months and sometimes years. Sometimes I can mostly function, other times it’s completely debilitating to the point where I’m just shuffling from bed to the bathroom to the kitchen and back to bed for weeks or months at a time. This is, afaik, typical of Bipolar II - Extended periods of depression that can last weeks, months, or longer. Then periods of euthymia, normalcy. And then there are also hypomanic periods that can last weeks or rarely months.
Bipolar also tends to cause some serious cognitive problems with things like executive function, decision making, focusing on tasks. Part of the reason it’s hard to diagnose is that many of the day to day symptoms overlap with ADHD and Autism. You can have a lot of symptoms that most bipolar people have, but you have ADHD or Autism (or a combination) because they have many similar symptoms. Like ADHD and Bipolar both cause problems with sleep, so lack of sleep and poor sleep isn’t enough to diagnose one or the other.