Did you have to read this book in high school? I am the Cheese? I almost didn’t like it, but then we got to the end where you find out the title is taken from the nursery rhyme The Farmer in the Dell. The main character believes they are the cheese. Because the cheese stands alone. For some reason, my adolescent mind thought that was sheer brilliance and now I have nothing but fond memories of that book.

Anyway, when I was told my bipolar diagnosis, which I received in 2007, wasn’t accurate, I thought to myself, I must be the cheese. I even looked up how many people are misdiagnosed with bipolar and apparently there are no actual statistics on that. Which, I understand it would be hard to track. But, at the same time… why wouldn’t you track that? Why wouldn’t you want to be aware if there was a problem with how much this illness was being incorrectly diagnosed?

After I posted about my misdiagnosis on Facebook, four other women reached out to say that they too had also been inappropriately labeled bipolar. Which, I’m not sure what this statistic means exactly, but four??

That seems a like a lot.

On one hand, it’s nice to have company in this strange place I find myself. But also, are doctors just handing out bipolar diagnoses like lollipops? Of course, bipolar is difficult to diagnose correctly. I did read about how people with bipolar can go about seven years before knowing they have that. The fact they are not keeping any records of who is being misdiagnosed seems off.

In the end, I am glad I can consider myself one of the lucky ones to be free of a illness I didn’t have and never did. But side eye. Side eye to everyone in mental health. Because I was also on psych meds that never seemed to work for 19 years as I didn’t actually have what they were treating.