Over the course of my life, I have been diagnosed with the following mental health conditions:

• Bipolar Disorder
• Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
• ADHD
• Binge Eating Disorder
• Major Depression

As of today, here are my current diagnoses:

• Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (resolved)
• Major Depressive Disorder (resolved)

You might be wondering how I got from one list the other. It was a long path. More than 20 years long. Let’s get started. Here’s a recap for those of you just joining us.

The Story As We Know It

I went to see the third ENT I had crossed paths with, Dr. Gottlieb, the middle of March 2026. I knew something was wrong with me. I have known it my entire life, in one way or another. But 10 months after my first sinus surgery with a different ENT, I felt so awful and riddled with sinus problems that nothing, not even the other ENT’s assurance that I was totally fine, was going to stop me from finding the truth.

During my appointment with Dr. Gottlieb, he told me something that no medical professional had ever suggested to me: while I still had all the sinus issues my first sinus surgery was supposed to fix, I also had nasal valve collapse.

Which meant I couldn’t breathe properly.

Which meant I couldn’t sleep properly.

Which, since the problem was congenital, meant I have been unable to breathe and sleep for basically my entire life.

The entire situation seemed bizarre to me. I was told my first sinus surgery was a complete success. Now I was being told that not only did it epically fail, but I hadn’t been diagnosed with the actual problem that had colored every aspect of my existence.

When I got home, I started researching nasal valve collapse and everything else Dr. Gottlieb wrote down in the visit notes. Suddenly everything started making sense in the most terrible way imaginable.

Fighting and Flighting

A body that can’t breathe properly is literally struggling to stay alive. And what is one way your body keeps you alive? Fight or flight mode! I have no idea exactly when my body slipped into it, but I really started noticing it the summer before I turned 20.

With my body not breathing correctly and in fight or flight mode, it started creating…. problems. I was constantly agitated. I was emotionally dysregulated from this and from not being able to get restorative sleep. I couldn’t relax under any circumstances. Anxiety was a part of my everyday experience.

I constantly felt like something terrible was just about to happen all the time and thinking that it wouldn’t would be inviting it in. And we all know my history with the grocery store. I was a jittery mess who was seconds away from a meltdown. Even if I didn’t look like it at the time.

I also recently learned about something called poor stress recovery. Which I wholeheartedly knew I lived with for years, immediately upon reading the definition. Poor stress recovery means after a stressor was over, you don’t feel relief. You still felt as stressed and anxious as you did while the stressor was active. When we finished our halfway-across-the-country move to Texas I thought I would feel amazing. I didn’t. I still felt like we had nothing but an endless checklist in front of us and it could never be completed.

Good Try, Body

Of course, while my body was in fight or flight mode, trying to keep my myself alive, it decided I had to eat. That would keep me going! It told me to crave carbs and sugar. It told me to eat constantly. Days when I felt emotionally low, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from eating more. It almost seemed cruel to deny me the only option I had to make me happy.

Of course, my weight spiraled out of control. When I realized this, I sought psychiatric help. Which, since I had no idea what was going on with me physically, turned out to be not as helpful as one would have hoped.

Without knowing my misguided body was waging war against my ability to fit into my clothes, I was diagnosed with Binge Eating Disorder. This always puzzled me, because I was very clear with everyone that I didn’t really binge. I ate too much in one sitting on occasion, sure. But I was a grazer. I didn’t over consume massive amounts of food within the two time limit required for the diagnosis.

In the end, I was basically told that I was getting the diagnosis because I couldn’t access medication or weight loss surgery (which I had shortly after my diagnosis) without it.

The ADHD Factor

A similar thing happened when it came up that I might be ADHD. Even though I have historically had pretty good focusing abilities. But once I turned 30 I was getting so little sleep that I was experiencing extreme daytime drowsiness, even after using a CPAP (which was never going to work anyway, because that eases throat-related breathing issues and mine were nasal). Every day at work, I was so tired I felt like I had been drugged. I couldn’t focus on anything because I was falling asleep at my desk.

But the treatment for ADHD is commonly a stimulant. You know what stimulants do to some people? They wake them up. I tried the stimulant and soon couldn’t imagine being without it. This was the only way I could function in my everyday life and I had to function.

So I was diagnosed with ADHD. Even though the person who administered the psychiatric evaluation admitted that my symptoms didn’t make much sense in the context of the disease and while I was getting the diagnosis, I barely earned it. But I didn’t care. I now had the magical ability to stay awake.

Bipolar Stumble

When I was 21, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. At the time I was diagnosed, I was living in total ignorance about just how abusive my childhood was. I definitely had Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD) and had had an episode of major depression two years earlier, all those diagnoses were valid.

But I didn’t know I couldn’t breathe. I had absolutely no idea I was physically ill at all. This perfect storm of being actually mentally ill with CPTSD and depression, still trapped in the abusive situation that gave me the CPTSD, all while I am living with physical illness that is mimicking symptoms of other mental illnesses, meant I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2007.

Thankfully, we figured out that that wasn’t accurate! You know, 19 years later.

Wait, What Happened to the Actual Mental Illness Bit?

I said above that I was diagnosed with CPTSD and depression. And I was. I have every reason to know those were valid diagnoses. But the key word here is “were.” Episodes of depression can resolve themselves. They stopped after I moved out of my abusive parents’ home. The same can be done with CPTSD when the symptoms are addressed with therapy, coping skills, and a bit of luck.

After years of therapy, doing the work, struggling, trying, failing, and trying again, these conditions are resolved. While I will always have a history of mental illness, I am not mentally ill right now. Which is strange even to write.

The mental illnesses I was incorrectly diagnosed with are lifelong conditions. I had mentally prepared myself for a lifetime of more episodes, fighting with insurance companies, struggling just to get medication and treatment, and the reality of my life expectancy being cut short from this disorder. But somehow this life I thought I had has evaporated.

In the End, It Totally Does Matter

I feel like I hit a million jackpots. I still haven’t completely wrapped my head around the idea that I am not disabled. I was physically ill with something which took 40 years to detect. I might only be getting to live my life without illness at 40 years old, but I am acutely aware it could have been longer, or never, for the nasal valve collaspe to be discovered.

When I think about it, I never thought the year I turned 40 would be the year I became who I actually am without physical illness and without diagnoses of mental illness that no longer fit. This leaves me only one question now:

What am I going to do for 41?