A New Diagnosis
In 2007, I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder after a suicide attempt. I took a 12-week disability leave from work. During that 12 weeks, I worked on scanning photos I had bought of Joan Bennett and created a website. I used Photoshop to try to make the newspaper pics clearer, and I am proud of that work. The website no longer exists, but I worked on it, and that helped me to heal. I never felt the Bipolar diagnosis fit me that well, but the psychiatrist who diagnosed me had retired soon after. I believed him, and I just told the two psychiatrists I saw after that that I had Bipolar II. They never questioned it or looked further into my behavior and personality. But with each passing year, the more I learned about Bipolar Disorder, the more I questioned that initial diagnosis from a psychiatrist who was in the midst of retiring, winding down his practice, selling his house, and planning a move to another state. During the great pandemic of 2020-21, I started reading about women w...