The Test is Right!

Come on down!.. and take the diagnostic roulette for a spin

Several years ago I was told by my family doctor that in order to stabilize my mood and depression I would have to take on a dose of antidepressants, daily. After a quick online search revealed the atrocious possible side effects of such medications — notably the amount of weight I could gain — eighteen-year-old me strongly decided against it. Walking out the doctor’s office I was told that there was nothing else they could offer me. As a young girl I found it easy to calm down and put myself in a good mood again. It seemed as though I had a choice and I was free to go down either route.

Fast-forward to 2015 and my older sister (let’s call her Rebecca) is now experiencing bouts of depression and anxiety herself. Unlike when I was at 18, my sister currently has a full-time job and a full university course load to tend to. Where else could she turn to but that very same doctor?
A month into her symptoms she calls our family doctor (lets call her Doctor A) and makes an appointment. After a seven minute conversation she is then referred to a psychologist (let’s call her Doctor B) “to talk about her stressors” and handed a prescription for an antidepressant. She then begins her treatment and feels no difference in her mood.

Flash forward another month into Rebecca’s story, after meeting with Doctor B for the first time. She is told that she has probably been misdiagnosed and put on the wrong medication. In order to fix the problem, Rebecca is sent to a psychiatrist (this is our Doctor C) who then asks her several routine questions and confirms that he believes her condition is that of bipolar disorder. As you may have guessed she was put on a new type of mood stabilizer — presumably to stabilize her inexistent mood swings. How did Doctor C arrive at this diagnosis?

Another few months later my sister Rebecca doesn’t feel any better. As a matter of fact, it feels as though this constant struggle between her sanity and her health is being exacerbated by all these intermittent doctor’s appointments. Doctor A and Doctor B now see no problem with her mental health. Practically out of the woodworks Doctor C announces that he himself has misdiagnosed her and switches her medication to an anti-anxiety pill.

Rebecca then seemed to be caught in the midst of a warped episode of The Price is Right — wherein the contestants are doctors A through C and her health is the shiny new car. They guessed at diagnoses as though they were timed, using a variety of techniques to beat their competitors. Similar to the show’s normal contestants, we had no belief that these doctors had any ill intentions. All we knew from this point was that they were giving it their best guess, going at it by whichever technique had been yelled out the loudest at them.