Re: Bi-Polar II and not ADHD?

[Anonymous]

Sandra, I’m with some of the others on making absolutely SURE that your doctor/doctors have the right diagnosis.

I ‘diagnosed’ my dad as ADHD after reading/learning about it at university while studying to be a teacher. Then I had my son. Yes, he had it too (a real diagnosis from a real doctor 😆 ) Did I see ADHD in myself? Well, maybe a teeny tiny bit but I had it well under control. Or so I thought.

Then came the depression. I was saddled with 3 kids, one of them a wild ADHD LD boy, no family closer than 1500 miles away, and a husband who was gone for weeks or months at a time. We all know that having just one wild ADHD kid means that my family was blacklisted by every babysitter in the entire country! I didn’t know how I’d manage. That’s when I was given the Bi-Polar 11 diagnosis.

I was the poster girl for Bi-Polar. I took the meds and wanted to feel better. The depression part went away but gee, I still had a lot of other stuff going on. The highs never left. I was an energizer bunny! Six years later, my psychiatrist tells me that she doesn’t think I need the meds anymore. I could go off them, at least for a while as long as I stayed ‘ok’. Hmmm, I wondered. Was I no longer bi-polar? I don’t need the meds anymore? Had I become ‘un’ bi-polar somehow or other? I really didn’t want to go off my meds because I was too afraid of depression happening again. (depression is NOT fun and I sure didn’t want that to come back again…..)

Eventually, I did go off the last of the drugs and lo and behold, I was fine. The depression was gone but all the other symptoms that had been the clincher for why I was supposed to be bi-polar were still there. (up all night, talk too fast, talk too much….) The psychiatrist had made her diagnosis based on those symptoms.

How did I discover that I was actually only ADHD? I became very ill but was not able to convey that message to my GP. I guess she could only see an unmedicated bi-polar patient who was describing imaginary symptoms. Her solution was always to suggest that I needed to go back on my meds. Talk about frustration!

Luckily for me, I developed gallstones/gallbladder attacks. This my GP would believe was REAL and not just vague ramblings from an unmedicated ‘head case’. The ultrasound confirmed the gallbladder issue but discovered the source of my ‘imaginary’ complaints.

Fortunately, I was promptly sent for a surgery sweep across my mid-section that removed my ‘lucky’ gallbladder, part of my pancreas with the TUMOR that had produced all my ‘imaginary’ symptoms, and my spleen. To say the least, I was a bit traumatized to l would have died if it had been ignored any longer.

What was it that really traumatized me? The fact that my doctor was unable to hear me as a patient because of the bi-polar ‘head case’ stigma. Any complaints about my health were answered with “you need to go back on meds”.

So the psycho trauma only fueled my ADHD issues. When I was finally able to go back to work, I was further upset by the mess I found when I returned. I was going in circles trying to fix things up (well, it was MY fault they were in such a mess because I had been away and they couldn’t find a proper replacement). The mess at work was my fault, at least in my mind.

So I came up with a plan. Frantic, upset people don’t work well or very efficiently. Frantic, upset ADHD people do an even worse job. What can I do so I can work more efficiently instead of doing circles and circles and more circles and still getting nothing done? Maybe meds would help my ADHD mind slow down a bit.

Problem: GP won’t give ADHD meds to crazy bi-polar lady. I kept insisting so she sent me to a new psychiatrist (old one retired) but this guy just said he was retiring in a month and he didn’t BOTHER with that ‘stuff’, meaning ADHD so he wouldn’t give me anything either. Harrumph! So I found a new psychiatrist on my own (GP wouldn’t give me another referral- she did threaten to sign me in to the psych ward if I kept up on this ADHD thing).

This wonderful doctor told me he hears that same story over and over. He specializes in ADHD. He says he get many patients who have been diagnosed as Bi-polar who are absolutely NOT BP- just Adult ADHD. He also said he gets patients sent to him who are supposed to be Adult ADHD and he has to say, “Actually, you are Bi-polar” and he get patients that he has to tell, “You are bi-polar and ADHD.”

Yes, apparently we can be one or the other or both. He says a lot of patients are misdiagnosed because of the similarities between the two conditions. He says no matter what, there is hope and there is treatment. Never give up.

Thank-you for sharing with us. I could sense your pain and frustration. Please keep us informed of how you are doing because we do care.

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