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)

  • PaX [comrade/them, they/them]
    ·
    9 months ago

    Thank you so much for sharing your experience. I don't understand why she jumped to this diagnosis after maybe a combined total of spending 30 mins talking with me (This was our 2nd appointment and I saw her for the first time in person today).

    Your experience of hypomania doesn't really sound like me at any time... I think. Occasionally I will get very invested in topics or projects which brings me a lot of satisfaction and I might sleep a bit less than usual and use a lot of caffeine to stay focused but I don't really feel more confident or any kind of all-encompassing euphoria or any desire to engage in any risky or impulsive behavior out of the ordinary. Idk :( I guess sleeping less is the most concerning... last time this happened I just felt "okay" as opposed to my usual "things are hopeless and I'm barely hanging on". I have a lot of anxiety about my health normally so it's hard to tell what's a real symptom or what I have convinced myself I have. It's hard to remember my behavior exactly too... I'm not sure if I was sleeping less or not last time.

    Do you have depressive episodes? What are they like for you? I have been feeling pretty bad in the last month or so (although I usually always feel bad these days, depression, anxiety, etc). That same NP gave me some medication for my ADHD that didn't really help and made me feel a lot more anxious and maybe depressed around the same time. Then some other condition I have was getting worse. It's just so confusing :( I guess I have good reasons to feel worse than usual?

    I'll ask my therapist about it tomorrow. It could get weird though because they both work in the same small clinic and my therapist referred me to her. Maybe I could ask my primary doctor about it too.

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]
      ·
      9 months ago

      Do you have depressive episodes? What are they like for you?

      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.