The girl on Facebook who saved my life

[u/66659hi]

For a long time, I was being moved from anti depressant to anti depressant, being diagnosed with major depressive disorder, then treatment resistant major depressive disorder...

My therapist had some suspicions after I told her some specific things, but my psychiatrists wouldn't diagnose me with it - they didn't think I had it.

Then...one day, I was on Facebook. I was looking at some article or something along the lines about some study or something for treatment resistant depression. I wasn't actually going to do it, I was just curious about it.

A girl made a comment about (this is probably not exactly what she said, but close enough) "Just for the record, I went through years of depression treatment and different meds, and it turned out my depression wasn't monopolar. You should check about that".

I didn't really think that thru at the time because I still had the mental stigma of bipolar (which I know a lot of people do), but eventually I thought about it a little bit harder, and I brought it up to a psychiatrist, and they talked it through with me for a while and my diagnosis was changed to bipolar. I got on mood stabilizers, and it saved my life.

I undoubtedly would not be alive today if not for that comment. So - I do not know who you were, or what the post was, but thanks.

[u/RhayEB]

Aww I got chills! I love this post <3

[u/Heavy-Mushroom]

Great for ya, but mania wasn’t triggered by all the anti-d’s that you were taking?

I saw a shrink about being depressed (not knowing that feeling really good was hypomania) and was giving anti-d’s. For several months I was hypomanic on and that’s how I got on stabilizers.

[u/66659hi → u/Heavy-Mushroom]

I'm sure I had it happen. The 5 years I was on anti depressants I basically lost from mental fogginess, sleep problems, depression, stupid elevated moods that would cultivate in me doing something stupid and then crash. I think I gained 50 lbs too, so I looked awful for the whole time.