Possibly Bipolar...who to see?
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| Fri, 05-04-2007 - 5:36am |
Hi everyone. I've been doing some research online and just remembered ivillage.com so I thought I post here and try to get some advice. : ) To make a longer story shorter, I had a really bad depressed episode last week and afterwards was really worried and scared because I realized that I didn't even feel like myself at all and had lots of scary thoughts I haven't had in a very long while. My moods have been changing pretty often, every month or so sometimes a little longer, for about the past two and a half years, at least that I've noticed, because that's also around the time I had another horrible depressed episode. I have been depressed in the past two and half years, but never as bad as that time or last week. I didn't have insurance, but I will get some soon, I just scheduled an appointment this week. Now I am feeling really good at times, irritable at others, and sad at others, it's totally mixed and I haven't experienced it this bad or changing as quickly either so I'm still worried. As you can see, I'm still awake at 4:26 and don't see sleep happening anytime tonight or tomorrow.
Anyway, I don't know for sure if I have bipolar or it's something else psychological or what, but as I've been reading accounts I feel like I have finally found people that understand what I've been going through!
***********My question is do I need to, or should I, see a medical doctor first or can I go to a psychiatrist and he or she will do all the necessary medical tests also?**********
There's a lot more I could write about my symptoms, but I wanted to mention that as some people mentioned on here I also see shadows, or what I think are actually people, in my peripheral vision, but lately it's been worse I guess, like the other day I thought I actually saw someone walk out the door, but no one did...and I'm always hearing things or mishearing things.
Also, a big thing, that no one seems to understand what I mean when I tell people is I feel like people can see through me, totally, they can see my body, and my thoughts and everything....it's a really weird feeling.
Thanks everyone.
Edited 5/4/2007 5:48 am ET by dyingtolive

I'm running on 22 minutes of sleep (and 4 hours the night before) last night.
As to your question about who to see first; it depends on your insurance. Some insurances require a referal from your family practitioner others don't. And if you don't have insurance you should be able to get right into the Psychiatrist.
As to some of your symptoms, it sounds a lot like bipolar. Once while driving I saw a boy around the age of ten standing by the side of the road dressed in a blue uniform. As I passed him, I looked in the rear view mirror and there was no one there. Also as a teenager and some today, I feel as though certain people can see through me and know my thoughts. It made me feel really guilty where I'd avoid those people. I don't know if those things are related to my bipolar or not, but just wanted to share with you. Do share them with your doctor, he'd be able to tell you whether or not it's part of the BP.
Welcome to the board. From reading your post you show a lot of the signs of a bipolar person. As was mentioned in a previous post, depending on your insurance requirements will depend on who to see first. I know with mine I had to get a referral initially, but now I'm seeing a pdoc (psychiatrist)
As far as just dx'ing BP-a pdoc doesn't really have any tests per se, although sometimes they will give you different mental evaluation tests, more as a baseline than anything else.