TW - mental health diagnosis I suspected I might have bipolar from my late teenage years, because not only did I have almost all of the symptoms - it also ran in my family (my maternal uncle sadly lost his life from it when he was only 25). I consulted various medical professionals throughout my teens and early adulthood but they were not willing to explore that it could be anything other than solely anxiety and depression. During a particularly terrifying mental breakdown aged 21, I felt like I had completely lost my mind. My brain was firing on all cylinders, I was thinking much too fast, I had pressured speech, I was paranoid, reckless and impulsive and I even had symptoms of psychosis in the sense that I couldn no longer tell what was real and what wasn’t. I had too much energy, I wasn’t sleeping, I wasn’t eating and I had a LOT of creative ideas. I was walking around explaining to random people that I could feel every atom in my body exploding outward with some kind of magical electrical energy. I felt some immense joy and excitement in this state but also a metallic undercurrent of fear. It was as if I was no longer in my body and instead on a completely separate planet all alone. After some time had passed of being in this state, I demanded to see a mental health professional. I explained all my symptoms to a psychiatrist and asked them if they thought it could be bipolar, given that my symptoms lined up with hypomania. He said no, definitely not. He called me an attention seeking drama-queen with a bit of depression and anxiety. I responded that it felt like something else was going on. He wasn’t having it. He was absolutely horrible to me and I became more and more frustrated and desperate during the appointment. He said some other completely inaccurate stuff like that I had interpersonal difficulties (despite me having good relationships with my family and friends) and anger issues (despite me absolutely not relating to this at all throughout my life). By the end I was absolutely sobbing and having a panic attack. It was such a traumatic experience that I’m crying my eyes out typing this 11 years later. I struggled and struggled with my mental health over the next 5 years. I did have some good periods of time in those years, but the bipolar symptoms of both depression and hypomania were always lurking in the shadows. They sometimes reared up again for months at a time. I saw several mental health professionals in both the UK and the USA during those years and no one listened to me properly. I was even put on SSRI’s to combat the depression at one point, which sent me into one of the most devastating hypomanic episodes of my life. So, I wasn’t diagnosed with bipolar type 2 until several years later, when I was 26. Thankfully, a team of NHS doctors and psychiatrists in Brighton finally took me seriously and took the time and effort to get to the bottom of it. They were professional, calm, wise, and immensely kind and I’ll always be grateful to them as they likely saved my life. Together, we experimented with various different medications until we landed upon a mixture of lithium and lamotrigine, which helped stabilise my mood. My bipolar has been much more manageable for the past few years. I’d even say my mood is pretty stable now. There are other factors that have gone into this. But that’s another story. I also want to thank all of you guys so much for being here with us. Connecting with you all and being part of this community is something I’m thankful for every single day. We love you and our thoughts are with anyone struggling with their mental health, today, in the past or in the future. 💙 #worldmentalhealthday #MentalHealth #bipolar #diagnosis #mentalhealthmatters - @sugarcoatedsisters