I got hastily diagnosed with bipolar disorder and prescribed lamictal in march of 2021 by a psych on teledoc (dude gave me shit meds left/right, super negligent) after telling him my symptoms for only 5 minutes. I have had a history of depressive behavior since childhood, and had it fully manifested in adolescence. I’d exhibited hypomanic symptoms like racing thoughts, a million people talking in my head at once and jumping hastily on from one project/interest to the next accompanied by risky behavior, heavy paranoia, and erratic behavior as well as heavy mood swings. The thing is that these symptoms came in tandem with depressive symptoms which were way more extreme.

The only issue is the they’ve never been clear cut episodes, only behavior that came and went throughout the day or throughout the week, always mixed together. The lamictal had no effect until it hit 125-150mg , and stabilized my mood, almost completely ridding me of most symptoms. In the past when i’d skip 2+ days of meds, i’d get an insane depressive dip that would last a few days.  I had attempted to go down from 175-&gt;150 at some point but it gave me a dip again (about a year ago). I’ve tried other bi meds like lithium and zyprexa, as well as non bi meds like lexapro, wellbutrin and all of them only made things worse. 

Now in almost oct 2022 ive finished going down from 200mg to 100mg after having been on it the past year, and it’s having almost no withdrawal effects on me, rather than mild mood swings and super sensitivity to emotional stimulus. If anything it’s lifting the emotional “veil” over my face that people feel on meds.

So now i sit here and wonder do i really have bipolar disorder? Or is it just depression + adhd? My adhd symptoms are strong and debilitate my every day quite a bit, so i dont even know anymore.

Does anyone have any advice? 

Thank you all for coming to my ted talk..