Bipolar or AuDHD or both?!

Seeking Advice

I want to start out my saying everything that follows I posted to the bipolar sub that I'm part of first, but I also wanted to post it on an autism/ADHD page as well to see if anyone has any input or can relate at all! Tw: talk of death of self and others.

I've been diagnosed bipolar for 4 years, since my son was born and I saw a therapist postpartum, she suggested I may have bipolar disorder. I latched onto that and spoke with the psychiatrist about it and she put me on my first bipolar meds, which were not the right combo at all and made me feel like I was escalating further and further into craziness for 2 whole years.

I stopped breastfeeding my son at this point and entered what was thought of as a mixed episode with psychotic features. It was truly awful. I was paranoid, delusional, I was convinced that I was going to drive myself and my children off the road and we would all die. I had voices telling me these things. It was a terrifying place. I got to the point where one night I couldn't sleep at all and the next day I put myself in the hospital. They put the BD 1 diagnosis on me and changed up my meds to a cocktail that stabilized me, but made me into a zombie for the next 2 years that I hardly remember anything.

Fast forward to this summer and I was tired of being a zombie and still struggling with a lot of symptoms and changed psych doctors to switch up my meds again. I'm now on these new meds that again my mood does feel "stable" as I don't have the big highs or the low lows, but I know things still aren't right. I still struggle soooo much in life. My new therapist suggested I have autism, which I have suspected for a very long time but never said anything, so she got me in to see a different psychologist who is now doing a full psych eval on me. After my first appointment he said I am "probably autistic" definitely GAD, depression, PTSD, and a bit OCD and social anxiety. He sent me home with eval tests for myself and 2 others to do for me, which includes the CAARS 2 assessment for ADHD. Well we all filled these out and it's looking like I may also have ADHD.

What I'm getting at here is I'm wondering if in the past my "hypomania" that my first therapist saw in me was actually ADHD. I can be spontaneous, fidgety, moody, highly disorganized, hyper fixate on things, can't sit still, etc. My BP diagnosis was never even an evaluation it was just me saying "hey I think I'm bipolar because abc" and them saying "yep here's some meds!".

Then there is my psychotic break which I really believe now happened because of postpartum psychosis and weening my son. I was on ssri and mood stabalizer then and it still happened.

I currently struggle with focus, depression, feeling restless, hyper fixation, being stable in my career, among the other "ADHD" things I listed above. I'm currently on mood stabalizer, tricyclic antidepressant, and antipsychotic.

I just know that I've never had a truly manic episode and always thought that I just had mixed episodes instead, but maybe I've just never been truly BP? I really don't know. I just know it's been a very long journey trying to figure this all out and reddit has been extremely helpful. So any input or personal experiences with misdiagnosis would be appreciated!

Posted Dec 29, 2025, 2:59 AM UTC

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