So Many Diagnoses

Hi guys, long time no see.
Five years ago I received my first bipolar diagnosis. For a few years that was my only diagnosis. Many pdocs, therapists, and hospitalizations later, I am now diagnosed with bipolar, PTSD, ADHD, and BPD. What the hell? The first diagnosis was tough enough. I feel like there's so much overlap with these things how can they say i have four separate disorders. I do think the PTSD is separate, but how can they differentiate between bipolar and BPD and bipolar and ADHD? I just hate having all these labels.

Did you get all those labels from one doc or many?

I've seen a lot of docs... they all have differing ideas about what's wrong with me. If I listened to them all I'd have a diagnosis a mile long, and that is because every doc has biases and so every doc will see you vaguely differently. It's just a thing... Don't get caught up in the WHAT. The treatment is what matters, not what they call the problem.

Bipolar is a mood disorder that no one really knows the cause of. It's not like being schizophrenic, where they can do a test to see you have too much dopamine. The cause of bipolar has been speculated to be everything from hormonal imbalances to environmental factors... but there's no definitive test they can give and say, "Yep. You have bipolar and this test definitively proves it because you have X, Y, and Z in your biology." It's guesswork at best... scientific guesswork, but guesswork, and so is anything they don't have a medical basis for. Personality disorders... you can't do a brain scan or a blood test for them. They're guessing based on how you act and what you'll tell them. ADHD? Based on questionaires, not physical tests.

Don't get caught up on what they call it. A rose by any other name... and a mood disorder is the same.

Some labels bleed into one another, some are similar, but just unique enough (like bipolar vs borderline). I have a whole grocery list of labels that are co-morbid with my bipolar and schizoid disorder, so I simply go with those two if I want to summarize it. I think most PD's have reason to have PTSD, and ADHD is probably more or less your brain trying to distract itself from unwanted stress (that's what mine is at least.)

Labels aren't anything more than umbrella terms to summarize the issues going on. It makes sense docs use them rather than recounting everything. My point is don't get hung up on them, but rather try to work within the treatment.

Hi voracious lemon,
It's definitely been a long time since I've seen you here. It's nice to see your post on here.

I have no reply, actually, but I think those are a lot of diagnoses as well.

Yes these are all from the same pdoc. Thanks for the responses. I talked with my old therapist that I'm starting to see regularly again about it and she says she does agree with the ADHD and thinks my PTSD is more of a "complex PTSD" that looks a lot like BPD, and although she hasn't seen me in an episode based on my history I definitely have bipolar illness. Oh well. From this point on I'm gonna leave the dx'ing to the docs and the insurance company. Ill just keep taking my meds and going to therapy to work on individual issues for now.