My Diagnosis or Lack of One

I have mentioned that my psychiatric disorder seems to most closely resemble bipolar.  I am being as precise as possible when I say 'seems' and 'resembles'.

The one thing that all my doctors and I can agree on is that I do have an episodic psychiatric disorder characterized by depression, anxiety, and paranoia.  However, I have received a range of opinions about what I might have and have gotten 3-4 different diagnoses depending on whether a vaguely stated opinion from a doctor that I had a 2 hour conversation with can be considered a diagnosis.  At this point I have seen a total of 7 doctors.  Some of these doctors I saw for an hour and others I saw for over a year.  I am grateful that I do not have 7 different diagnoses, because some of these doctors were wise enough to refrain from offering an opinion.  The closest to a common denominator for the diagnoses is 'bipolar NOS'.  However, I do not mean to say that all the doctors necessarily agreed with this.

Reliability
For this reason, I say that my bipolar diagnosis is not reliable.  I would define a reliable diagnosis for a person as one which is repeatable in that a new doctor would be likely to make the same diagnosis for that person.  As my experience indicates, this is certainly not the case with my diagnosis.  I hope that science can one day produce tests that will conclusively determine just what I have.  Until then I will say that I may have bipolar.

Accepting a Diagnosis
A charge that is often leveled against people like me is that we are 'refusing to accept our diagnosis' or that we are 'in denial'.  Indeed, I do not feel compelled to argue against these people as their tendency to jump to conclusions is devoid of reason.  But all the same, I will say a few words on this topics.

I argue that I am not in denial, because I accept that I have a psychiatric disorder, and have since the very beginning.  I was the one who first noticed problems, because I was closest to the problems.  And, I continue to be the person to first notice recurrences of the problems.  My current focus is on treatment, the success of which I define as a short-term mental stability.  I argue that I would neither notice my symptoms, nor be interested in treatment if I were 'in denial'.

I do, however, believe strongly in the accepting ambiguities that are caused by the limits of human knowledge.  I have accepted that my diagnosis is unknown and unreliable.  This helps make it possible for me to keep an open mind and to consider treatment methods that are typically applied to a variety of disorders.