04/16/2026
Misdiagnosis happens all the time-and I see it in spring most often.
Autistic people, and people with AuDHD, are misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder at striking rates. Especially women. Especially people who were diagnosed late.
Here’s why it keeps happening. You feel things intensely — that’s not a character flaw, it’s neurology. When you swing between the weight of February and the relief of April, and you express that contrast visibly and physically, it looks to an untrained eye like someone who is cycling. Your variable presentation across seasons gets read as mood instability rather than what it actually is: a sensitive nervous system responding to a dramatically different environment.
I cover this and a lot more in our latest blog post-link in comments.