Newly Diagnosed with Many Questions

Hi,

I am new to this forum and have just been diagnosed. I went to my neurologist and after listening to my symptoms, he diagnosed me as having bipolar disorder with ocd. That was two weeks ago.

I went to the psychiatrist for a full evaluation and he determine that I had some type of mood disorder and he was not sure. So he said mood disorder not otherwise specified. He said it couldn't be Bipolar I because I haven't had any "major" maniac attacks. He said if anything, it is Bipolar 2 with ocd, schizoaffective disorder, and borderline personality disorder. Also he mentioned disassociative personality. Now I am really confused.

I was given 250mg of Depakote, .25 mg of risperadal, and I forgot how much, but the anitdepressant, Ananafril. I googled all of those and they seem like very serious meds!!!

What do you make of this diagnoses? I know you don't know all of my information, but I am severely depressed often, when I am "up" I believe I can conquer the world, I have delusions and hallucinations often and maladaptation daydreaming. What do you make of this?

I am curious because I don't know where to start.

Only you can decide what your goals are. The doctors give the diagnoses and prescribe treatments.

In my case, I saw many doctors after my initial diagnosis. While all of them agreed on my diagnosis, the treatment was very different and the attitude that each doctor had was different. I finally found one who is much more supportive of my goal to go med-free. It is a long story about how I made the transition off meds about a year ago, so I won't do that here.

Most doctors won't want to even hear their patients talk of strategies to accomplish such a goal, but there are some very supportive doctors out there. On the other hand, you may take very well to meds and be very happy, as many on this forum have chosen. Thus, whatever your goal may be, I think that it's worth it to shop around until you find a doctor that feels right and supports your goals.

Don't let the meds scare you, they all have side effects though some worse than others. For instance I'm on lithium now and am gaining weight and my hair is falling out in clumps. But honestly, it is better than the pendelum of this disorder. Once you get stabilized they won't seem so bad and some side effects actually lessen over time.

Hang in there. It will get better. I'm trying to tell myself the same thing. I just went on new meds about a month ago and am waiting for stability too.

pillsbury

I full psych assessment and evaluation should take months. The initial evaluation, which I'm guessing is what you had is just to determine what you might have no what you do have.

I don't think you can be bipolar and Schizoaffective together, it's either one or the other. So it sounds like your psych is not a 100% yet and saying what if could be.

The meds you are on are quite low doses so you should be ok but any problems just give you pdoc a call.

Don't get too overwhelmed. By the sounds of thing it is still very early days for you. X

Bettyboop wrote:I full psych assessment and evaluation should take months. The initial evaluation, which I'm guessing is what you had is just to determine what you might have no what you do have.

I don't think you can be bipolar and Schizoaffective together, it's either one or the other. So it sounds like your psych is not a 100% yet and saying what if could be.

The meds you are on are quite low doses so you should be ok but any problems just give you pdoc a call.

Don't get too overwhelmed. By the sounds of thing it is still very early days for you. X

You can be bipolar and schizoaffective together, it's called "schizoaffective bipolar type" or something.

Sounds like it's a lot of diagnosis and a lot of med at the same time though.

Hi

I have one main thought here that jumps out - it seems to be an awful lot of diagnoses to give you. I would think that it would also take some time to come to deciding on those diagnoses as they are complex to make. It might be worth asking them to explain their reasoning behind them all. The maian thing is tho that irrespective of diagnosis the symptoms you have are being treated.

Hugs

Cracked

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for the replies. My psychiatrist was not specific as to what I have exactly. He said "you do have some type of mood disorder, if it is bipolar, then it would bipolar 2." He also associated a lot of my symptoms with the disorders that I listed above. He never mentioned maladaptative daydreaming as a disorder though. I "diagnosed myself" with that one. I thought I was the ONLY PERSON IN THE WHOLE WORLD that was a compulsive daydreamer. I would find myself daydreaming all day. Especially to music. My psychiatrist just said that was some type of disassociative thing that I was doing thanks to childhood abuse. He said abuse could be something as simple as "neglect." My mom did leave us at home a lot by ourselves while she went out to nightclubs and dated. I would sit in the window or by the door for hours awaiting her return. Till this day, I hate it when my husband wants to go out and hang with his friends because I feel like he will never return (the same feeling I used to get when my mom would leave.).