Hi all, So my journey with mental health has been all over the place. I had a psychiatric evaluation today to screen me for a bipolar II study; this practitioner was incredibly sincere and considerate. He was always very gentle with his wording, he is incredible, I wish he was my personal psychiatrist, best experience I ever had with one. He's like is it possible to you that the hypomania you say you're experiencing is just... hope... joy? He's like take this with a grain of salt, I've only spoken to you for 30 minutes but it seems to me you're demonizing your joy. Based on what you told me, it seems like you've had your emotions dismissed or compartmentalized into labels. I just sobbed, I'm like damn I lived with 4 diagnoses so long and now it's like... only 2? Incredible. Just severe cPTSD with disassociate symptoms and autism. On one hand, I am so irritated because I feel like it's been this lifelong thing inflicted onto me by my abusers but it's also like oh thank god I feel so seen and heard. I just always thought something is fundamentally wrong with me and I'm broken, that maybe the right medication to stabilize my moods would make me look normal enough to be independent again but it's like now I feel like I had everything taken away from me. I don't even know what to do to accommodate myself anymore lmao. Tldr: Thought I had bipolar II for years, turns out just deep cptsd, feel like I'm starting back at square one. Hopeful and hopeless all at once.

Thank you all for giving me a space to rant. Mental health journeys are so draining, so tiring.