I’d never thought my ex psychiatrist was mistreating me. I loved her. I was fond of her. When she left, I cried.
Still, while I was under her care I ended up admitted to the acute ward and in two occasions to a long-term rehab facility after that, every single year starting from 2016 onwards. Five admissions, all of them in February/March.
She KNEW my Bipolar: I start being unwell in January, and by March I’m psychotic and need inpatient treatment. It’s been like that for years.
BUT.
Did she really know how to treat my Bipolar?
Why did I keep ending up needing inpatient treatment?
Wasn’t there a way to prevent those relapses?
ALSO:
Why did she keep writing Bipolar II in my notes when I experienced psychosis every fucking year?
Why did I feel so unstable nearly all the time? Was it due to my Lithium levels being kept so low they were borderline out of range?
Why did she play along with that stupid BPD bullshit? I fit 3 criteria for BPD. 5 are needed for the diagnosis to be made. But no one ever gave me a questionnaire to fill out to diagnose that. They just labelled me Borderline because I’m highly hypersensitive and that, to me, sounds like gaslighting. Still, no questions asked. BPD it was. “You need psychotherapy”, “find a psychotherapist”, she repeated over and over. She was deaf at my remarks–psychotherapy never helped me, it is pointless, especially talk therapy.
I listened to her, because to me she was a goddess, but I quit the damn psychotherapy after a few months, because talk therapy, as I’d predicted, made me feel even worse.
(CBT works. I’m doing CBT with BetterHelp now and it helps loads, totally worth the money).
You could be wondering why am I asking all these questions.
Well, it’s because 155 days ago I met a new psychiatrist, and he changed my life.
He scrapped off the BPD diagnosis. He said that I have Bipolar I without any doubt. He upped my Lithium from 300mg to 750mg a few minutes into the first appointment, saying that in his experience it’s better to leave the Lithium levels sitting at 0,9-1 especially in a person who tends to experience psychosis.
HE VALIDATED ME.
In my experience, doctors rarely believed me. It was a constant struggle. I would constantly feel like I had to prove I was unwell — yes, even with that psychiatrist who was a goddess to me. Starting with my very first psychiatrist — who was an incompetent asshole who diagnosed me with Bipolar after years of “Major Depressive Disorder” and still didn’t prescribe any mood stabilisers, sending me straight into a dysphoric manic episode — she said Lithium is an “old drug” — YES, REALLY — anyway, what was I saying? Oh yes, starting with her, who responded to my utterances of suicidal thoughts with “Oh no, why do you think like that, sweetie?”, and later with the goddess-like one, I always, always felt like I needed to prove I was unwell. It was never enough. I was never “unwell enough” until things spiralled out of control and I’d need to be admitted.
I remember the appointments with the goddess-psychiatrist: I rarely left with my meds unchanged. Sometimes they were only minor adjustments, but most of the times I’d leave her office with completely new meds on my med chart.
Now, in 155 days, my psychiatrist only made a minor change once. The scheme he set out on our very first appointment turned me from a sluggish and desperate caterpillar into a slightly-damaged butterfly who’s learning how to fly. The cocktail is working. It truly changed my life–and it only needed to be amended once to add an anxiety medication.
My current psychiatrist is against hospitalisation, he says we’ll go there only if a major crisis occurred, so I asked him about my cyclic episodes in February/March. He said “we’ll manage them, the meds will work” and folks, I really felt I could believe him.
So maybe, for the first time in five years, I’ll be celebrating St. Patrick’s Day out of hospital. Fingers crossed.
I hate the thought that my former psychiatrist whom I loved so much did mistreat me.
But honestly, how could I think that she didn’t?
wecanmakeforever 