70% of bipolar patients are misdiagnosed at least once!

I was diagnosed with major depression and anxiety at 19 years old even though the doctor should have diagnosed anorexia the weight I was and just somehow ignored that. If he had asked all the questions correctly, bipolar would have been obvious especially as the reason I came in was having barely slept for 3 days. I was depressed, yes, but also overspending, hyper sexual. All he wanted to do was throw Paxil at me. I got so much Paxil, I could have been a Paxil drug rep., but he gave me Trazodone , so at least I could sleep a bit better. He was super focused on that social anxiety disorder that was in drug ads everywhere in the late ‘90s, not so much my mood, which it seems to me an obvious mood disorder should trump a social anxiety disorder. Because I had no insurance, I was using a free county system (not recommended, but you do what you have to do). Every subsequent doctor in that system decided the first doctor must have been right and went on treating me for depression, throwing every SSRI out there at me.

It was 10 years before I had private insurance, and thank goodness I got the best doctor out there who decided she should do her own full intake evaluation as if I were a new patient (which I was) and not be lazy and think, oh, Dr. X. from our same system diagnosed this, I don’t know him, but surely he’s right