Frustrations with Past Mental Health Professionals

Kind of just a vent, tbh. Having one of those moments where I get upset at past mental health professionals for screwing me over, whether out of not bothering to do their job or just due to ignorance. My current psychiatrist is AMAZING. When I told her a couple of years ago that I thought I might have ADHD, she was more than happy to listen. She asked for copies of prior psych evals. I had had two done within three years of each other. My scorings were almost identical but the analyses were different and very singular-minded. One said bipolar, hands down. The other said schizoaffective bipolar type, hands down. Neither of those people considered the possibility of more than one thing, nor gave any possible differentials. (Side note: My psychiatrist reviewed them, asked me if previous psychiatrists looked into other diagnoses, then apologized on about a dozen people’s behalves, saying that they—individuals and the field as a whole—failed me. She took responsibility for their choices and said that apologies mean nothing, all she could do was try to make things better from then on. Yes, I bawled my eyes out.) Anyway. Can’t sleep, so I was looking over the evals. Haven’t read up on schizoaffective for a while, so I do that… and lo and behold, a missed, rather obvious, differential diagnosis to note. “Disorganized thinking: switch topics quickly, provide unrelated answers. Manic behavior: impulsivity, recklessness, excessive energy.” Hey, hi, could that possibly be bipolar d/o with psychosis + ADHD? Considering my scoring numbers, that absolutely should have been considered. How much better could high school have gone if any of my psychs tried an ADHD med other than adderall 30 mg XR? And he only prescribed it because I couldn’t stay awake, not because he thought I might have ADHD. 🙃 Every psychiatrist after my second one ~2005 (we don’t talk about the first one, LOL) just looked at what my previous doctors said I had and added meds to cover up any new/worsening symptoms. Those previous doctors had done the same. All the way back to the psych evals. In fact, they cared so little to bother that I was given both bipolar and schizoaffective bipolar type diagnoses. Not to mention all of the things that could have been better IRT being undiagnosed autistic… Or if my junior high school had told my parents about the existence of IEPs. (My high school put me on one almost immediately, and they all legit got so pissed at my JHS for not giving me one. Validating as heck.) Yeah… That was a lot, but I just… wanted to put that out there somewhere.