The nurse practitioner I’m seeing about my ADHD diagnosed me with bipolar disorder
She literally could not have surprised me more if she tried
This makes no sense to me but it’s scaring me a lot :(
I don’t really remember having manic episodes? Depressive maybe but it’s usually after something bad happens to me and not really consistently…
I told her I put off making this appointment cuz I’ve been feeling really bad recently, then she just asked me a few questions like if people say I talk too much sometimes or if I do things impulsively and prescribed me an antipsychotic (aripiprazole) wtf
I asked some family and they haven’t noticed anything like this… idk :(. Has this happened to anyone else? Am I just in denial? I’m afraid to take this drug she gave cuz I really don’t need to be even more tired all the time… or tardive dyskinesia or something (unlikely, worst case)
Not a knock on nurse practitioners but I personally wouldn’t be getting a mental health diagnosis from anybody except a clinical psychologist or a psychiatrist. Preferably one that has a special interest in whatever you are seeking help for as well as age group. I know this can be prohibitive but diagnostic criteria for this stuff is so much more subjective than any other field in health I would want somebody at the highest level of expertise.
I come from a healthcare background and while nurse practitioners are great I honestly feel their role is best suited to maintenence and tweaking of treatment with most of the diagnosis handled by a much more specialised practitioner.
Also in terms of viewing a diagnosis as having been given “another chronic condition” : just remember that it’s something you have already been living with, it just now has a description and you can recieve targeted help.
Yeah, I definitely think there’s a role for nurse practitioners and I feel like some of the more commonplace psychiatric conditions like depression and anxiety is up their alley. Agreed on tweaking and maintenance work too.
But if I had bipolar I’d be going to a psychiatrist, same for ADHD.
The hasty bipolar diagnosis is iffy and then going to aripiprazole just doesn’t seem to have a good rationale behind it - we can presume that they didn’t give a Bipolar I diagnosis for obvious reasons. That leaves BD II and BD NOS, but if this is the first time seeing a patient then you can’t really eliminate schizoaffective disorder and messing with dopamine in this situation is simply ill-advised.
Chances are if it was one of those 3 the aripiprazole would probably be fine but it’s just a bit of an unnecessary risk and tbh I’d expect a prescribing professional to want to stabilise the condition first before (potentially) introducing antipsychotics, all things being equal.