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)

  • NoLeftLeftWhereILive
    ·
    8 months ago

    As someone who has a family member with bipolar I would say that the manic episodes are such that they can't be missed. He was always also self-aware of them after the fact. And the depressive episodes are so much beyond anything resembling depression in a depressed person that this night and day difference is hard to miss by family. Yet even he was misdiagnosed for years with just anxiety/depression because the care people never saw the mania/deep depression. This is just one example, but I also work with people who are bipolar and it's different from ADHD.

    ADHD can mimic bipolar with its low and high energy phases, but it isn't the same. Personally with ADHD I have these same phases too and as a woman I have had the GAD&depression label slapped on me when I was young (which in hindsight I obviously do not have and never felt I had). This however led me to taking medications for 20 years that just made me worse/never helped. This is why I would ask for a second opinion or challenge this nurse on this, because people do know what they are or are not and a misdiagnoses causes actual harm. Trust your gut and lived experience, diagnostic systems have a lot of problems and are always just estimates too.