My daughter is bipolar and she’s not been compliant with her meds. She says that she’s not sure if she has bipolar. And to be honest, I don’t feel like I can be 100% sure either. And doctors can only go on what you tell them. And some psychs are very pro mental illness while others are generally skeptical.
So my wife turns to me and says, “But you don’t have any doubts about your diagnosis, though. Right?” to which I responded, “Yes, I’m not 100% sure I’m bipolar. But I would never let that doubt stop me from taking my meds”
It freaked her out.
Here’s the thing, if all a psychologist/psychiatrist has to go on is what I tell them and I don’t trust myself to be truthful about myself, then how can I trust this diagnosis? You see? And both of my doctors are very pro mental illness. They WANT me to have a mental illness. It’s their business.
Funny story, my daughter went to a different guy once and my wife told him I was bipolar and described my behavior. His response “You’re husband isn’t bipolar! He’s a drug addict!”. See, he’s not pro mental illness. He would be very reticent to diagnose me as bipolar. (I’m not a drug addict, btw!)
But if you’ve read any of my first posts, you know that it’s probably a good diagnosis. The thing is, all that bad shit happened when I was on an anti-depressant. They never just tried taking me off and seeing what happened. They took me off and immediately drugged me with mood stabilizers. Maybe I just shouldn’t be on Cymbalta.
But I’ll never know. My wife has told me that she will leave me if I quit my meds. So this is the rest of my life here.
There’s too much at stake here. If I go off my meds and have a major manic episode, I could lose my job and my family.
So, yeah…
Closer to the Middle 