The Medicated Life: Part II

The point of my previous post was that I am constantly and consistently medicated.

I'm on stimulants all day and downers during the night.

There is nothing natural about my routine, 

it's all induced.

Then again, we have to remember how wonderful I am doing. I have a healthy, loving, functioning relationship, a great job, I'm doing better in school than  I've ever done, my moods are stable, I've quit drinking... everything is calm.

I still have mood swings. Somedays I'm in a total fog, others I'm wired. But there is no depressive or manic behavior.

Sometimes I wonder if I really am even bipolar. You can never really know. I could just be extremely dramatic (which I am). 

I was first diagnosed when I was fifteen. He was an old Indian man with horrible english. He listened to my parents describe my mischievous behavior. He heard my story through dramatic sobs. He casually informed my parents that I was manic depressive, and likely ADHD. He gave my dad some samples of medication. They were tiny pink capsules and my father promptly decided that I was not bipolar and threw the meds away.

I saw a few more therapists and psychologists, I stuck with none.

When I was nineteen I decided to enroll in a local community college. My second semester there I took PSY 101, which was when I rediscovered bipolar disorder and read the symptoms through tears as I self-diagnosed myself. I went to my professor in tears and told her my discovery, she recommended I went and spoke with a psychologist at the school.

I went a few times, we came to no conclusion. 

Two years later I started seeing a psychologist at ASU. I had done countless hours of research on bipolar, and told her that I had concluded that was what was wrong with me. I used up my five sessions with her and she referred me to ASU's psychologist, who I am still seeing. But what if I was wrong? What if I am not even really bipolar and I'm taking all of these medications? Spending my entire paychecks on medications I may not need?

I've read that this is a common symptom with people who have bipolar disorder. They started taking their meds and get better and think they are cured and go off their meds and go crazy again. But sometimes, rarely, I'll forget to take my meds before I go to sleep. When I do this, I am instructed to skip that dose and wait until the next. I feel a sense of clarity on the mornings I wake up without seroquel in my system. I won't take my adderall, I will feel awake and alert all day long... 

I guess it's a question that will remained unanswered for now.