Getting started

Hello, my name is Olyvia. I have suffered from depression, since I was a teenager, but it only surfaced as a real problem after the birth of my second son, nearly 40 years ago. Initially I had a psychiatrist who did not subscribe to formal diagnoses but identified me as having troubling experiences since I was a young child, leaving me poorly prepared to manage life in positive ways. I became way more than 'troubled', moving into deep, totally debilitating depression; was then diagnosed by another psychiatrist with Major Depression and started on anti-depressants. With the publication in the 1990s of DSM IV, like many people, I was re-categorized with the diagnosis of Bipolar Type II. With this, came terrible suffering for me, based on ignorance about bipolar, as I was falsely 'identified' by a daughter-in-law as being "an unacceptable risk to my grandchildren" due to my bipolar condition; and formally prevented from ever having contact with my two grandchildren. In fact, none of my family or friends sought to understand bipolar and I have been seen as a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad person. The one time, i sought help to educate my family about the bipolar condition, was when I was a scheduled patient at Sutherland Hospital, through a programme, "Working with Families". That backfired at me, I was not allowed to attend the two meetings, where the Hospital Psych Social Workers - who had never met me - supported my family, in seeing me as the cause for the high level of conflict in my family. I was used as a 'Scapegoat" - 'Gaslighting' me. My GP recently urged me to join a bipolar support group to help me learn from others, about day-to-day life experiences and struggling to cope with my ‘bipolar’ states, which can make life very difficult for me; and aware that I am different from others, causing me to feel very isolated, feeling very guilty and very rejected.