What the Fuck?

Just so you know this is not the initial blog I wrote, that will be coming, but sometimes there must be two. I went to a movement neurologist yesterday. That is the kind of doctor she is and I just want you to know so we are clear. I have had extreme discomfort for over a year in my left leg and unable to sleep well so I already went into this appointment scared and little cranky. They have a list of your medications on file and each time the doctor looks at them, as they should, I get a little nervous. She was looking for a long time so I said, “I have bipolar.” But if she is a smart doctor she should be able to tell that without my even saying.

The pause is long so I’m ready for something, I can tell there is going to be a something.

“How do you know you have bipolar?” You’re thinking- What the fuck? Right? I hope you are at least. So I told her I wasn’t here about my bipolar.

“How do you know?” I sighed, hard. How do I know?

“I was diagnosed when I was twenty four, by a doctor.” I knew this was not going to be enough.

“Have you had an episode?” She apparently had some training in medical school, at least she, like me, had read the definition.

“I was diagnosed when I was twenty four.” I was on repeat and talking very slow.

“Sometimes people are told they are bipolar without having an episode.” I was getting upset because this wasn’t why I was there. I was there for another real thing but I couldn’t explain that and now I was afraid she wouldn’t believe this either and I along with her was starting to doubt myself.

“I had a manic episode.” Then she sighed with relief because she was glad that I did, having a manic episode is in the definition of bipolar. I sighed, too, thinking thank god this is over and we can get to why I am here?

“Okay, that’s good because sometimes people are just given that diagnosis.”

“I have very good doctors. I have always had very good doctors.”

“Great. I’m glad you have good doctors.”

I was glad she was relieved and that I was truly bipolar, not the made up bipolar, and that what I went through twenty years ago was real, that my parents putting up a second mortgage on their house for my hospitalization was for a real disease, that this depressive episode is real and that I really have been lost. What a relief.