Being heard - probably Bipolar 2

Finally, I have had a meeting with a psychiatrist that has been willing to discuss past patterns in my mental health, not just how I am in the moment. There is a place for focusing on the now, but that doesn’t help to work out what the long term issues are. When I explained that I had in my previous location been passed from one junior to another as their training rotations shifted, and each with their own views – from the ‘if you are not in debt and sleeping around it cannot be bipolar’, and ‘this mood diary is not relevant as you were abroad’ – he was apologetic about what I had experienced.

We talked about different events in my life, including leading up to my big collapse at theological college.  He validated my view that over productivity, excessive confidence and boundary issues fitted the pattern of hypomania, the times when I am full of energy and ideas but often in a driven way. That can be really creative but not easy for those I am rushing into ideas and who have to slow me or stop me.   I have never thought I have had clinical mania – the sign of Bipolar 1 - but that I fit the patterns of depressions with intermittent hypomania times. I recognised myself in the descriptions I was reading of Bipolar 2 back when I had the inflated idea that a full time job, an illness and a part time PhD was reasonable.

All I have sought is a reasonable conversation with a professional about what resonated with me and how that might impact how I manage my mental health. I have had some medication that matches a bipolar spectrum view but no-one before would discuss things diagnostically.  I respect that technically the psychiatrist needs to witness a high to formally diagnose – ie not just on what I say (in case I am making it up) – but he listened and valued my past experiences and validated my self-recognition.  He agreed that if as I described then it fits the Bipolar 2 model.

I am pleased to have a putative label for my experiences, not because I want that label, but because I felt heard and my understanding of myself was valued.  Having even a ‘maybe/probably’ label is helpful because it enables a realistic conversation of how things can be managed.  But even if the psychiatrist had explained why it was not what I thought, because he valued what I had to say I would respect that view, whereas those who just dismissed my experiences did not have my respect.

It is still a seesaw even if you spend more time down than up 

When, about 7 months after my big collapse at college (I had been sent to a counsellor but no-one had nudged me to the doctor in that time), I went to the GP and was diagnosed as severe depression I came home a tiny weeny bit less low – it was not just me being a failure at being, it was a valid illness.  This appointment has had a similar, though not as desperate, an effect - what I have thought about myself I not imagination, not me trying to make more of a fuss than needed, it has been validated by a professional after a real reflection.

The power of being listened to – an example that we can all follow in our different ways.