Mental Health/ TW- Bipolar Disorder Type 2

At the beginning of 2022, my mental health diagnoses were as follows:

• Borderline Personality Disorder (Managed)

• Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

• Binge Eating Disorders

• Post Traumatic Stress Disorder 

• Persistent Depressive Disorder

  During the first week & a half of January 2022, I was completely fine, but then I experienced trauma. I fell into a depressive episode for 1 and a half months and needed to be hospitalized twice. Around mid-February, I was discharged, had my face off with covid, and eventually started to feel baseline again. By mid-March, I went into what is thought to be my first identifiable hypomanic episode, however, professionals believe I had periods of hypomania in the past, and that because my BPD was now managed, it was easier to differentiate what was Hypomania, and what was BPD euphoria. During this episode I wasn't sleeping, I could barely eat, and I walked nearly 10 Kilometers a day for someone who was seldom active. I felt like I was invincible and considered walking in front of heavy traffic with my eyes closed to prove it, I was talking and changing topics so fast that my friends and family couldn't understand me, and it felt like my thoughts were on a treadmill, moving so fast I couldn't make sense of them. When my friends & family expressed their concern, and because I wasn't sleeping I went to the hospital for assessment. There I explained what was happening, and said that I had begun to feel sad after 4 days of being really high up and was considering suicide because I felt like I was crazy and couldn't sleep. He seemed willing to help until I disclosed that I had BPD, and even though the nature, and length of my symptoms were new, non-fluctuating, and I had just been in a depressive episode for a solid month and a half, they tried to equate all my symptoms with BPD. They gave me a mild PRN to help me sleep and sent me home. A week later I met with my psychiatrist who had from my email, and notes from the hospital a general idea of what happened. I explained everything in more depth, and afterward, she instructed me to find out if I had a family history of Bipolar disorder. By the next appointment after telling her that I found out that my great-grandmother and my mother both had Bipolar disorder, I was then diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder Type 2, in place of Persistent Depressive Disorder. Bipolar Disorder Type 2 differs from Bipolar Disorder in that depressive episodes are typically longer, and more intense. We also experience hypomania versus mania. The symptoms of hypomania are the same however mania is more intense, lasts longer, and often leads to hospitalization. I was then given a lithium increase to help with bipolar, one that I had been on for 6 months already to help with my persistent depressive disorder and chronic suicidal ideation. After this diagnosis, so many things made sense. Since then I've had two depressive episodes both resulting in hospitalization that I can identify and one hypomanic episode that just passed. I am now on 10mg Abilify which seems to have stabilized me. The plan going forward is to lower my lithium after a 30-day trial period of Abilify. If it poses as more effective then we will be trying to streamline as many as my 7 psych medications before she resigns in June. We will be keeping me on a small dose of lithium, hopefully, a dose small enough to get rid of the hypothyroidism and diabetes insidious it has caused but still enough to curb my suicidal ideations. While on lithium I went from having suicidal ideation every day, to now basically only during depressive episodes, so it is important that I remain on something we know works for my S/I. It has been a crazy ride with my diagnosis. It feels like I have had the diagnosis forever now. I can go back to moments before knowing I was bipolar and determine if I was potentially in an episode. It takes some getting used to, and I am still uncomfortable confidently determining if I am going through an episode while it happens. Here's to getting the hang of it all one day.