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)
Agreed.
I could absolutely see someone prescribing valproate instead of lithium because it's a bit easier to manage the dosing of it. Same for lamotrigine but I would be questioning why a prescriber would reach for that first if they did.
The only way that I can square aripiprazole-first treatment for bipolar is if it was a BD-NOS diagnosis, and even then...