Commentary: I received 6 psychiatric diagnoses in 25 years. They were a dead end

The day I sat in my psychiatrist’s windowless office and was told I had bipolar disorder, I’d already been in the mental health system for 25 years. It was my sixth diagnosis. Starting at age 12, I’d also been told I had anorexia, generalized anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and attention deficit disorder.

Sitting on my psychiatrist’s gray, puffy couch, I knew quite a bit about bipolar disorder — not just from my time in and out of doctors’ offices, partial hospitalization programs and intensive