Who has recently been diagnosed BiPolar II?!
Question: Who thinks it's a sham diagnosis? A bandwagon all psychiatrists are jumping on? If you never had any symptoms of mania, no, not even so-called hypomania, and you never developed manic symptoms on Anti-Depressants, are you wondering what is going on all of a sudden? What do you hip BiPolar IIs think? If you've been put on mood stabiliziers, have you felt better? No Bipolar I answer, please. Your symptoms are unmistakable, no offense.
Answers: Who thinks it's a sham diagnosis? A bandwagon all psychiatrists are jumping on? If you never had any symptoms of mania, no, not even so-called hypomania, and you never developed manic symptoms on Anti-Depressants, are you wondering what is going on all of a sudden? What do you hip BiPolar IIs think? If you've been put on mood stabiliziers, have you felt better? No Bipolar I answer, please. Your symptoms are unmistakable, no offense.
Dismiss me if you want, but I had bipolar II before it developed into bipolar I.
From my perspective alot of psychiatrists (and people in general) are missing the signs of BPII. Why? Because depression alternates with this hypomanic state. Hypomania appears as "productive" or finally being "normal". Often the sufferer will not even acknowledge there is a problem.
There is another form of a mood disorder, quite similar to BPII which is called Cyclothymic Disoder. It is basically an even milder form of bipolar.
I'll entertain your idea, how psychiatrists are jumping on this disorder. There is a common form of depression, called Atypical Depression, in which the individual responds to some pleasure (ie they can laugh at a joke, but always have a feeling of depression inside). Depending on how the symptoms are presented they may be mistaken for BPII.
This can also be viewed positively, it's a good thing that psychiatrists are recognizing this as a disorder. It may take time to find the balance in the middle though.
THANK you! I think it's a sham diagnosis - complete rubbish. I was diagnosed as Bipolar Type II once (inaccurately, I might add - I am not nor was I ever bipolar...but that's a whole nother story) and the way it was explained to me was, "Like bipolar, except without all the highs of mania." Uh...is that not just depression?
I was depressed, but they diagnosed me as bipolar type II. Even then I knew it was bunk but I was only 14 or 15 so no one listened to me. At age 25 I was correctly diagnosed...as having a nonverbal learning disorder and ADHD inattentive type. Yeah, that's ALMOST bipolar type II. >:(
It's worth noting that I was diagnosed as bipolar type II after several (most) antidepressant that were prescribed to me didn't work at all. They came up with something new to call me to explain the fact that the pills weren't working, apparently. :P I'm ticked that I spend my entire adolesence doped up because doctors failed to give me a simple series of diagnostic tests that would have TOLD them I was NVLD/ADHD.
Sorry for the rant...! I've been meaning to post the same question you asked; I'm glad you posted it.
I have bipolar 2 and if it was a sham, then I've done a very good job at pretending, so good that I've fooled myself! Until I was diagnosed bipolar 2, my life was unbearable due to several misdiagnoses and wrong treatments. I was treated so badly because I had a mental illness that no-one could diagnose with any certainty; my relationship at the time crumbled under the weight of it, I lost friends and jobs, and I was kicked out of uni accommodation. I was hanging by a thread...
Without medication the disease took over my life, I was a slave to rapid cycling episodes and it was so hard to live with the unpredictability of my mood swings and the sheer mental and phsyical exhaustaion of it all.
My life was so difficult and I suffered so badly, at least until I was given the diagnosis of BP2 and prescribed mood stabilisers as part of my treatment, the only things that have bought me some measure of relief in the last 4 years. Its real. Very real.