Feeling nervous about psychiatric review

[notbipolar]

11 years ago I was extremely anxious as a teenager and not sleeping. I was hedonistic and took drugs and drank a lot and slept around. It was basically on reflection pretty normal teenage behaviour. Because I couldn't sleep, I took an over dose of a sleeping tablet that you can just get in Holland and Barrett. I panicked and went to a&e. After this I went to the GP and was refferred for counselling and a psychiatrist appointment. I met with a CPN and she said she felt I had bipolar. I used to think I could hear voices when I was stressed and tired. A psychiatrist said the same thing. I was prescribed quentiapine but took it for less then ten days.
Since then I've had the occasional bout of anxiety but no mania or psychosis at all.
I've been married for a long time and with my husband for ten years. He worked in mental health with really sick patients his whole life and doesn't feel I have bipolar. Neither do I.
I do feel it's affected my treatment from HCPs as there is such a stigma attached to it.
I have been referred for counselling for post natal anxiety and I raised that I wanted this reviewed/ off my record. They have arranged for me to meet with the psychiatrist to discuss it. I can't believe she still works in the trust to be honest! It's been so long.
I am really worried it's going to feel like a character assassination when I have the review. Aibu to be nervous? Is it an okay process to go through?

Just a pretty awkward bump incase anyone who might have any advice was on the school run/ work when I posted this
Thank you

Do you have someone who can accompany you? Would that help your confidence?

Is it the term "review" that's making you anxious? You're not on trial.

Having said that I get anxious if I take a jumper back to a shop...

I’m sorry that you’re feeling anxious. I don’t know if this helps but MIND offer mental health advocates who can accompany people when attending appointments like this. I found them really useful. I had a quick look and this is a link which explains more: www.mind.org.uk/information-support/guides-to-support-and-services/advocacy/finding-an-advocate/
I hope your review goes well 😊

On this nhs page one of the first things it says is some reassurance that it's not a "test or exam". So you are probably not the only person to feel this way. It also says some things about "reviews"
Hope this helps but just ignore if not

www.nhs.uk/mental-health/social-care-and-your-rights/mental-health-assessments/

You can’t delete something that has happened. It may well be relevant to your current situation.
I think it’s quite old fashioned to feel stigma over mental health problems nowadays OP. I suspect you feel much more strongly about your past than the health professionals do - they will have seen it all before many times.
Try to move forward, not look back, and just focus on how you are now.

You cant control what the outcome will be, but be bloody proud that you are standing up for yourself. Go in with a plan of what to say or a brief account of your mental health since your diagnosis. Try not to see it as a process of convincing them, then you can’t lose anything in the process.

I also agree that this could feel really empowering once you are there. See it as a chance to voice that this label doesn't fit you and you would like it removed from your record and then see what happens. Good luck.

Yeah as a bipolar person (who experiences mania and psychosis) I can't believe they would stick to the diagnosis if you've been med free for years without an episode. Goes against what I've been told by psychiatrists and my own experiences anyway.

It's really difficult OP as a mental health diagnosis can follow you at round even if later is found to be incorrect.
I hope with review of you do get a different diagnosis they record it as "review if mental health diagnosis nor felt not to have bipolar but has xyz"

When it's a physical illness diagnosis that was wrong they do same. "Suspected Parkinson's disease , now thought instead to be MND.." But then they have to leave original diagnosis not expunge it as all treatment after then doesn't make sense. It had to have a chronology of "thought it was X, treated for a but review and for their investigations working diagnosis is Y"

It matters really only when there is a report written or it impacts on your care

YANBU
Bipolar is classed as a serious mental illness. If you have been medication/therapy free for a decade and have been coping ok with no manic episodes (the odd anxiety episode aside) then it is safe to say you do not have bipolar.

This really really really resonates with me

Thank you so much

This is what my husband said and the perinatal mental health counsellors @XenoBitch so I hope that the psychiatrist doesn't see it as me undermining their professional experience. I'm not saying I don't have any mental health problems I'm just saying I don't believe I have bipolar.

I don't have manic episodes, I took drugs and had one night stands, spending all my money that my parents gave me each month because I was 19 and I lived away from home and was at uni.

I haven't even had any major depressed episodes, just anxiety phases.

I am so grateful for the links and support I feel a lot better after reading the replies

Firstly, you asked for the review, you haven't been summoned. The team will understand your reasons for doing this and the psychiatrist won't feel that you are having a go at her or blaming her for an incorrect diagnosis. She acted on the info she had at the time and now you are simply shedding additional info on that for her.
Don't be anxious, they will be on your side. No one will be doing a character assassination.
Well done for making such a good go of your life and congratulations on your baby.

That's the thing it does impact my care. Even at the bloody dentist it gets raised. Before sedation for a procedure it gets raised. When I was pregnant repeatedly raised. If I go to a&e raised.
I don't want it to affect the care I get or the options I have for medication because of an incorrectly labelled mental health condition. If I had it I would accept it but I don't believe I do. I really don't.
It was 2011 when they diagnosed me and I never saw a psychiatrist since then!

Thank you so much I am really proud! I have come very far!

It is shit that you are treated differently because of a MH diagnosis, whether it's a valid one or not.

They won't remove it from the historical record because that is a record of the professional opinion at the time, the most they will do is what a pp commented where they note on your record the current professional view that you do not have xyz.

There was a period a decade plus ago when anyone experiencing any sort of mood swings, that one would expect from someone who'd been using drugs, and was seeking any sort of therapy would be slapped with the label of Bipolar II. I wonder if that's what has happened to you?

Your mental health history sounds so mild and normal, and I can see why you would want this cleared up. Good luck, and no matter how anxious you feel, know you have a right to stand up for yourself and your own experience and to separate yourself from factual untruths.

I've NCd for this. I'm in a similar situation and what I've found is that both of the times I've asked them to review the initial diagnosis of bipolar, instead of going back on what they said in the first place (despite overwhelming lack of evidence and the fact that, like you, I only took quetiapine for a short time, in my case 2 months and it just made me feel flat and depressed at the 'starter dose') they try to put me on mood stabilisers anyway and then suggest if it's not bipolar that it must be borderline despite the fact I am not struggling with mood instability and my initial diagnosis was made during a period of extreme stress/trauma in the aftermath of both my parents dying suddenly when I was in my early twenties.

After last time I got a private diagnosis of ADHD and PMDD, but the psychiatrist I saw a couple of weeks ago for my most recent PND yet again with no evidence and no suggestion I am struggling with mood instability brought up borderline/bipolar and suggested mood stabilisers as "a precaution". Bipolar has never been retracted from my records. When I pointed out that I don't meet the diagnostic criteria she said "you can be a little bit borderline or bipolar" which makes me query the point of the DSM.

In my experience when you question it you are "lacking insight". Unfortunately, from where I am standing, it's impossible to know if I'm lacking insight or if they're just trying to pathologise normal behaviours or if they fundamentally don't understand my ADHD. Each time I have gone to them because of post natal depression they have got fixated on mood stabilisers, and frankly at this point part of me would like my antidepressants to cause a hypomanic episode so I can know one way or the other (and I know that's self-defeating but at least I'd know).

I really hope your experience is different and that you get the right help, diagnosis and medication.

remember that the psychiatrist is there to help you!
in no way would there be a ‘character assassination’- the psychiatrist will be trying to work with you, to make the correct diagnosis and any treatment, all to help you, nothing else. I’m sure he/she will be keen to hear your husband’s observations too.
ultimately it’s collaborative and it’s all to try to assist you.
take care and good luck

I disagree with the part about stigma being an old fashioned view. Unfortunately there is still a very long way to go with this. I work in OH and the majority of people I speak with feel a degree of stigma and shame.

Lots of good advice on the thread, especially the info regarding MIND advocates.

Thought I would come back and say I just had my meeting and they agreed I do not have bipolar but long standing anxiety I am sooo relieved it was so healing to go through this and get it fixed

I am really grateful for all the support

Thank you everyone

Yay! I'm so pleased for you. Well done!

I even got an apology from the psychiatrist
I can't believe it
🥹🥹🥹❤️
She said she had put possible and my GP had just recorded it that I do, but never the less it was incorrect
I am so so so happy and comforted

It now means I can access the trial I want to go on

Fantastic. It is so good to speak up for yourself and get a good result. Being understood is such a relief, and an apology cements it. The truth wins!