Bipolar Disorder Diagnosis Story: A Student's Mental Health Crisis During Board Exams | My dear diary Ep:3

 

When the Ground Gave Way: My Mental Health Crisis in Class 12 and the Long Road to Diagnosis

A note before you read: this post talks openly about panic attacks, hospitalization, psychiatric misdiagnosis, and medication. If this is a hard topic for you right now, please feel free to skip this one, or come back to it when you're ready.

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Disclaimer: This article is a personal account of my experiences. It is not medical advice. Every mental health condition is different, and treatment decisions—including medication—should always be made in consultation with a qualified mental health professional.

In my last post, I told you about the momentum I'd finally built in early Class 12 — coaching that was working, grades that were climbing, a plan that finally made sense after a year of teaching myself from scratch. I said the next chapter would be harder. This is that chapter.

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The Ground Shifting Again

Partway through Class 12, my school reversed its earlier promise to support competitive-exam-level teaching. My teachers pushed back on my continued preparation for JEE Mains and Advanced. I didn't have a backup plan — I'd already decided, back in Blog 2, that I wanted a BSc Physics Honours degree from one of India's most prestigious institutes, and nothing less.

So I did what I'd already learned how to do once before: I went back to preparing on my own. This time, more focused than ever, determined not to let go of the goal.

But what happened next wasn't a story about not preparing hard enough. It was something much bigger than an exam.

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The Panic Attack That Changed Everything

I need to give you some background first. I've had migraines since I was around 10 years old — they physically resolved by the time I was 15, but the emotional weight underneath them never really healed. Growing up, I learned early how to suppress emotions without ever saying them out loud. As a teenager, I overthought everything. Some of those childhood patterns simply never changed as I got older.

There was already an emotional weight I was carrying: my father's lack of support and involvement in my life. At 13, I'd gone through counselling and cried more than I ever had. My counsellor recognized how much I was holding and asked to speak with my father. That meeting never happened — my mother left the hospital before it could — and my father later scolded her over it. I don't think either of my parents handled that moment well, and I carry complaints toward both of them about it, even now.

I'd also had panic attacks as early as Class 10, but my family didn't understand them yet. They were new to it, and my distress was often written off as me being "too emotional" or seeking attention.

Then, during a Class 12 mid-term math exam — an exam I actually knew well — my body suddenly overheated, and a panic attack took hold for around 45 minutes. My teacher carried me and got me to a civil hospital. My chacha (uncle) was there too; my parents had been informed. I didn't speak a single word for two hours. I just lay on the hospital bed. I remember my chacha had tears in his eyes.

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A Year of Misdiagnosis

The civil hospital doctor prescribed depression medication. I took it, felt better for two days, then stopped — not fully understanding that this kind of medication has to be tapered under a doctor's guidance, not paused on your own.

What followed was frightening. My memory grew blurry. I started crying loudly, and speaking continuously without pause. That's when my parents finally took it seriously. They took me to a doctor in Karnal, Haryana, who diagnosed me with hypomania.

One problem that's common with psychiatric care in many parts of India: doctors often prescribe medication without fully explaining the diagnosis or what the medication is meant to do. For almost a year, I didn't understand what I was taking or why. My condition kept getting worse. There were frightening episodes where I lost control and became physically aggressive toward my parents — behavior I still don't fully understand, even now, looking back.

My family made the decision to change doctors, and we went to PGI Rohtak. There, I started a new course of medication and finally saw some real results. But conflict at home still affected my condition — I didn't yet know how to handle arguments or emotional triggers, and every family conflict set me back.

I was admitted to the hospital. There, doctors diagnosed me with bipolar disorder (mania and depression).

Over the following year, I started recovering — until I skipped my medication for four days, and my condition worsened dramatically again. I was readmitted, and this time diagnosed with dissociative behavior alongside Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).

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The Turning Point

This time, my doctors connected me with a counsellor — and that relationship became the real turning point in my life.

Instead of just managing symptoms, he worked with me on the root cause: how to actually recognize and handle my emotions, rather than suppressing them the way I'd learned to as a child. For the first time, I saw sudden, real improvement in my mental health — not because the medication changed, but because I was finally learning the skills underneath the crisis.

I also started using that period to rebuild in small ways — watching things that genuinely helped me grow on YouTube, working on self-improvement the way I once taught myself an entire exam syllabus from scratch. It wasn't that I didn't know how to work on myself before. I did. I just had to apply it to something much harder than a textbook this time: myself.

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What I Want You to Take From This

If you're a student reading this and something in it feels familiar — the panic, the suppression, the sense that no one around you has the language for what's happening to you — please don't wait as long as I did to ask for real help, and please don't stop medication or treatment on your own without a doctor's guidance. That single decision, made without understanding, cost me a great deal.

And if you're a parent: emotional distress in your child is not attention-seeking. It's information. The sooner it's taken seriously, the shorter the road to recovery tends to be.

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Where I Am Now

I'm not going to pretend this chapter has a neat bow on it — recovery from something like this isn't linear, and I'm still learning. But I did recover enough to keep going, and to keep choosing the same dream I'd been chasing since that 8th-grade classroom.

Have you or someone you love navigated a mental health diagnosis that took time—and multiple doctors—to get right? I'd love to hear from you in the comments.

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Next time: what actually happened with my Class 12 board results, my JEE outcome, and how—after everything—I ended up choosing the exact direction my career has taken today.

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If You're Struggling Too

If anything in this post brought up difficult feelings for you, please consider reaching out to a licensed mental health professional or a trusted person in your life. You don't have to face difficult experiences alone, and seeking help is a sign of strength—not weakness.