Before Diagnosis

Its pretty common to not get diagnosed bipolar until later in life. I was 33. Prior to this, I had been diagnosed with depression- mostly ante-partum and post-partum depression during and after my three pregnacies. After my first trimester each time, I was put on Zoloft, an anti-depressant. This seemed to help the depressive thoughts. Howevever, right after the birth of my third (Sept 2001), I was having some pretty bad intrusive thoughts. In the shower one day with my 2-year-old daughter, as I was washing her hair, I saw my hands crushing her skull, the bones breaking under my force, the blood and brain material oozing.... One day, I had driven to the mall with the kids. On the way, I'd had visions of driving the car into on-coming traffic. It was so vivid that I found a payphone and called my mom to come get me. We ended up at my sister's apartment. None of these things phased my psychiatrist at the time. She was supposedly "big" into post-partum depression, too. My OB/GYN, however, was concerned, because a few months earlier there had been a story of Andrea Yates having post-partum psychosis and drowning all of her children. When I'd called my psychiatrist with these symptoms, her only response was to keep my on the Zoloft. Knowing what I know now, I think this fell way short.

Another episode happened after my daughter's birth in 1999. I was sitting in the bathroom looking out the window. I saw orange rectangles in the sky! I looked out and then back into the bathroom. No orange rectangles in the bathroom- only outside. I thought there were alien spaceshipts outside! I called my husband in who told me that there was nothing odd outside. Still, noone found this episode strange.

At age sixteen, I asked to be taken to a psychiatrist. I knew something wasn't right. It was in the way I was thinking, as I recall. My thought patterns were different, I thought. Also, at times, I'd have episodes of screaming at people- screaming at the top of my lungs- so much so that you couldn't understand what I was saying.The psychiatrist had argyle socks and was very "Freudian" in his ways. He told me I was a normal teenager! I was upset at the way he wrote everything down yet didn't talk back to me.

A few years later, I saw another psychiatrist. I looked out the window a lot of the time because I didn't want to be there. She decided I had what amounted today to be ADD. Still, we got not diagnosis. And, like before, I knew something was wrong, yet we got no closer to a bipolar diagnosis. Still, it was one or two appointments and that was it.

In early 1999, when I was early pregnant with my daughter, I went to see a different psychiatrist as we were living in a new state at the time. I described how I was feeling- how I was thinking. I thought some of it stemned from being a child of an alcoholic. I even went to see a specialist in this. But all I was told was that I was normal! This psychiatrist looked me straight in the face and told me I was "normal". I know for certain that bipolar was creeping up and I was confused. So confused! When you're not diagnosed, the symptoms of bipolar can just look like you like to shop or that you are very happy or that you- as happened to me once- lay on the bed catatonic all day.

People can suffer for many years before they are diagnosed and treated for bipolar. They are often diagnosed as having depression and put on antidepressants which can put them into a hypomanic or manic state. They are often overlooked, so that dangerous states can happen, like wanting to drive into on-comming traffic. It takes many years to get diagnosed and then the medications tweaked to a theraputic level. And even then there are breakthrough episodes, as evidenced by my recent manic episode. Here's to all those suffering.