Okay, so I came to a psychiatrist in August for help because I had a really horrible time adjusting to my fiance's wrongful imprisonment far away, my grandfather's death, and my brother who was being a complete jackass by disrespecting my parents and ran the house over with his stupid gangsta-gangsta friends. I came in the office for an acute flare up in my depression/anxiety. My psychiatrist, let's call her Dr. Duh, right off the bat suggest medication. I'm open minded and have been on medication before when I was younger, so I'll give it another shot cos maybe this is what I need. The medication makes me feel 10 times worse, I can't really function. I have even MORE mood swings, sleep too long in the day, hardly sleep at night, am irritable, etc. etc. and everyone says I'm very different on the meds. I decide that isn't the best path for me, especially since I had 2 major panic attacks while still on the medication. So at my appointment today, I bring up the two meds I'm on. Dr. Duh says, "Hold on! I'm only dealing with one medication at a time!" O.O Okay...so I wait. Right away she asks me if I need more of a dosage on the pills. I say no, obviously, cos I'm trying to get off them. She complains that I'm on the lowest dose possible and people are usually on a much higher does. I told her about taking only half the dose of the second pill as instructed by her nurse (cos I was sleeping way too much on a full dose), she interupts me while I speak, again, saying matter-of-factly that I don't need the whole dose, that if I can sleep on half a dose, it's fine. Well, how the hell was I supposed to know this when I thought it wasn't good enough taking half a dose? She sets up all my medication and gives me an as-needed prescription for anxiety. I asked her, "What are the possibilities of me getting off this medication?" She looks at me like I'm stupid and says, "Do you want to stay well?" and I said, "Yes..." and she said, "Then you have to take your medication every day. People with high blood pressure don't stop taking their medication when they get well, their blood pressure will get out of control. People with bipolar disorder need to stay on their meds." I have NEVER, ONCE IN MY LIFE, EVER been told I had bi-polar disorder or have ever been treated for a bipolar disorder. I have been diagnosed with depression, a schizophrenic disorder, and post traumatic stress disorder. Bipolar condition, by nature, is when a person is depressed who also exhibits major mood swings at the drop of a hat. (My brother is a prime example of this) A person could be sweet and lovely one minute, angry and swearing another, crying and throwing things another, completely happy and overjoyed the next, and so on. (not the best link but for a quick reference: https://www.google.com/health/ref/Bipolar+disorder) The racing thoughts, suicidal idealization and such are also part of this disorder, and things I possess at times, but they do not come out of thin air.I brought up never having been a bi-polar patient or been diagnosed with this disorder. Dr. Duh looks at me like I'm incredibly stupid and says, "Well, you have mood swings, that means you're bi-polar." Excuse me? Are you serious??? Up until 2 months ago, I was NOT considered bi-polar and I never saw it on my record of things I was being treated for. She didn't even tell me at the time of my medication plan that I was being treated for a completely new diagnosis she just pulled out of a hat by looking at me. How can someone say, in just one visit, that I have become bi-polar cos I was having a bit of a meltdown? My grandfather passed away! My fiance is in a far-away prison through no fault of his own! My brother was crippling our family with his utter stupidity and recklessness! I wasn't completely sure about my unemployment benefits and still haven't found a job! Yeah, I'm going to be moody about that! How can someone definitively say I'm bi-polar cos those things all happened at the same time and I was having difficulty handling these things all at once?! I explained to her how I thought I was being treated for an acute flare up in my already existing conditions, Dr. Duh said cos I keep having mood swings and racing thoughts that I am bipolar. To diagnose someone with bipolar disorder is very difficult and, I know for a fact, is NOT diagnosed with a 10 minute sit-down appointment. She gives me some prescriptions to pick up, including one for anxiety that I can pop as-needed when I'm having an anxiety attack. When I ask her about how I already picked up the first two prescriptions, she says very curtly that I have 5 so pick them up whenever. Jeeze! As I left the office, I wanted to cry cos I was so freakin' angry. I made a follow-up appointment and I asked the clerk if I could see a different psychiatrist. She said yes but Dr. Duh would have to approve it. I said never mind but I suppose the clerk could see how upset I was so she insisted that it was my right if I wanted to see someone else and usually it's approved, so I gave the go-ahead for them to contact me when another psychiatrist was available to see me for my second opinion. I got in my car and I told my mom what happened, she laughed at the idea of me being bipolar. She could hear that I was close to tears and angry. When I got home, I explained what happened to my dad. He asked me, "Is this the same doctor Jerry had?" (my little bro) I told him yes cos she is, he said, "That doctor needs to be of medication herself!" When my bro was a minor, my dad had gone to some of my bro's appointments and neither of them liked Dr. Duh for their own reasons. I'd never had this kind of experience with Dr. Duh so I was shocked. There's a first time for everything I suppose. In between the time I left the appointment and the time I got home, I had to ask myself, am I bipolar? I don't fit the textbook signs but could I be? Do I need to increase my dosage? Then I kept thinking, no, Dr. Duh is a mainly pediatric psychiatrist, I just kept her as mine through adulthood because she knew my history. It's difficult to pin bipolar disorder on an adult, much less a minor because minors aren't fully developed in their personalities and such so their behavior could not be the fault of a bipolar disorder. It's incredulous and outrageous that this doctor could find such a very serious disorder in me in just one glimpse, impossible I'll say. This is not going to be let go of easily, I am going to get my second opinion and I will see this through to see if this is just what this doctor does or if other medical professionals see this in me, too. Either way, I am done with wanting to take these pills, I am still very upset with being labeled as something so serious without ever being told before. It's reckless on the doctor's part and just plain rude and unprofessional how she treated me. I will have to continue to take my medication as prescribed until my second opinion because I don't want to mess with the chemicals already put into my body being stopped abruptly, I know better than to do that. I will have to use the step-down method of taking smaller and smaller doses eventually. I'm on some particularly dangerious meds to step up from so I can imagine it's the same if I step down. Sorry if this is all just jibber jabber and I'm wailing on about something dumb but this is something that has got me riled up in a bad way and I can't just let this go. What happened today was wrong on oh-so many levels, it's not even laughable. I'm waiting for my second opinion and ready to get off these pills. I'll do much better on my own. The only good part about that appointment? Finding out my fasting lab tests concluded that, save from a triglyceride level being a bit high, I'm overall on good levels with my cholesterol, HDL, etc. so that's pretty awesome! I still have a lot of work to do in taking better care of myself but it's a relief to know that I'm alright in that respect. *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* a pill to make you numb...a pill to make you dumb... (Don't worry, the next post will be MUCH cheerier, I assure you X_X)