I (26M) have been diagnosed with bipolar three times over the last 5 years. I had a very rough childhood and have struggled with emotional regulation as a result of that. My mood episodes are, without exception, spurred by an event. There are always marked triggers for my highs and lows, which has always struck me as odd compared to how other people describe bipolar. Since bipolar has random highs and lows, I feel like maybe mine aren’t bipolar episodes. Maybe I have an overactive nervous system, or maybe I just need time to practice having a stable mood. It’s worth mentioning that even on my medications I had disruptive highs and lows that occurred around periods of high stress/bad life events. But this has also only happened like 3-4 times per year.

Recently at my new job I learned exactly what my prescribed medications do in the brain (lamotrigine, abilify, alprazolam). The long term effects of these drugs on brain mass/white matter plus the growing memory and coordination problems that I have been dealing with have made me completely against taking them. I’ve been off of them all for two weeks now, and I can slowly feel my vocabulary and personality floating back to the surface. I think I just went to a few lazy psychiatrists who didn't feel like helping me unpack years of trauma, decided to slap me with a mood disorder, and drugged me out of my mind to keep me complacent. When you are diagnosed and treated for bipolar disorder, everyone around you stops taking you seriously when you express concerns about your medication. Despite feeling generally fine, I feel ashamed about stopping the drugs. My family and partner are collectively furious with me for my decision and I worry it’s making my partner view me differently. Does anyone else here feel like they were incorrectly diagnosed? How did you handle it? Did your family believe you?

TL/DR: I stopped taking my medications for bipolar, I feel much better now and feel like I keep getting misdiagnosed. Has anyone else gone through this?