It's been nearly 6 months since I was officially diagnosed with atypical bipolar II (predominantly depressive episodes with mild to moderate hypomanias), although I'm convinced that I've lived with the condition for at least 20 years. I never thought I'd hear myself say that finally obtaining a diagnosis was a blessing. A relief, yes, but a blessing? No way!
Please don't misunderstand. I'm not happy about being bipolar, I can't imagine that anyone would be. It's a complicated, confusing, frustrating and sometimes indescribably painful state of being. But, despite what I was led to believe in the early days of my diagnosis, it's not a death sentence, my life isn't over. In fact, in many ways - perhaps in all the ways that really count - the diagnosis has given me a new life, and a better one.
I find it very curious that over the course of 20 years, despite examinations by dozens of specialists, thousands of dollars worth of medical tests, and countless pounds of pills that at best did nothing and at their worst made me much sicker, no one was able to accurately diagnose the cause of my countless medical issues. I also found it curious that years of therapy with several different therapists never scratched the surface of the root causes of my emotional pain.
The diagnosis was the last missing piece of the puzzle of introspection and self-analysis that I've been working hard at for the past few years. At some point I decided to take control of my life and do what no therapist had been able to do for me - namely identify the root causes of the self-sabatoging behaviors that were causing so much pain in my life and figure out how to turn things around. Although I made a lot of progress, it wasn't until the diagnosis of bipolar disorder that all of the puzzle pieces began to fall into place. The more I learned about the disorder, the more I saw how it's symptoms had manifested in my life. The more I understood what had been going wrong, the more I began to understand what I needed to do to make it right.
(To be continued...)
Please don't misunderstand. I'm not happy about being bipolar, I can't imagine that anyone would be. It's a complicated, confusing, frustrating and sometimes indescribably painful state of being. But, despite what I was led to believe in the early days of my diagnosis, it's not a death sentence, my life isn't over. In fact, in many ways - perhaps in all the ways that really count - the diagnosis has given me a new life, and a better one.
I find it very curious that over the course of 20 years, despite examinations by dozens of specialists, thousands of dollars worth of medical tests, and countless pounds of pills that at best did nothing and at their worst made me much sicker, no one was able to accurately diagnose the cause of my countless medical issues. I also found it curious that years of therapy with several different therapists never scratched the surface of the root causes of my emotional pain.
The diagnosis was the last missing piece of the puzzle of introspection and self-analysis that I've been working hard at for the past few years. At some point I decided to take control of my life and do what no therapist had been able to do for me - namely identify the root causes of the self-sabatoging behaviors that were causing so much pain in my life and figure out how to turn things around. Although I made a lot of progress, it wasn't until the diagnosis of bipolar disorder that all of the puzzle pieces began to fall into place. The more I learned about the disorder, the more I saw how it's symptoms had manifested in my life. The more I understood what had been going wrong, the more I began to understand what I needed to do to make it right.
(To be continued...)
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