Читать книгу Welcome to the Jungle, Revised Edition - Hilary T. Smith - Страница 15

Do you have another disease, like epilepsy or diabetes, that might be causing your symptoms? Are you on crack? Pregnant? On the autism spectrum? Have a brain tumor? Or are you just hungry? Many medical conditions share symptoms with bipolar. You want to rule these out as possible causes before deciding the diagnosis is bipolar.

Of course, it can be difficult to rule out other conditions if those conditions are undiagnosed (maybe nobody's realized you're autistic, or pregnant, or anorexic, or have some obscure vitamin deficiency that is either causing or exacerbating your “bipolar” symptoms) or if those conditions are not recognized by your culture as being valid (like having a spiritual awakening or emergency.)

Unless you're on a really cushy medical plan, it's unlikely your doctor will run the dozens of tests necessary to exhaustively rule out other possible causes for your distress. It is therefore important to take as thorough an inventory as possible of your own health before you go to your doctor's office. Write down a year-by-year health inventory, as far back as you can remember. Include anything that seems significant, whether or not it seems relevant to “mental” health (after all, physical health and mental health are closely entwined). Have you ever had seizures? Insomnia? Childhood anxiety or depression? Self-mutilation? Stress-related conditions like eczema? Had a traumatic injury that still causes you pain? Other chronic illnesses? Frequent fevers or flus?

This might all seem a little over-the-top, but the more of an expert you can become on the working of your own mind and body, the happier you will be in the long run. Even if the doctor looks over the list and decides your symptoms are still mostly due to bipolar (even though you do have anemia and PTSD and a few other things with bipolar-esque symptoms), the inventory can help you see the bigger picture and help you come up with a plan to improve your overall health, not just the “bipolar” part of you. Mind and body are related—a fact which gets overlooked too easily in the drama of a mental illness diagnosis.