I want to share the story of a patient who almost fell through the cracks — not because people didn’t care, but because they stopped looking too soon. She was told she suffered from depression but it turned out – her symptoms were due to Lyme disease.

She came to my office after seeing three different doctors. Each time, she heard the same thing: “You’re probably just depressed.”

But something didn’t sit right with her — and it didn’t sit right with me either.

When the Diagnosis Doesn’t Tell the Whole Story

Depression is real. It’s serious. But it’s not the explanation for every symptom a patient experiences.

By the time this patient found me, her fatigue was overwhelming.

• Her joints ached unpredictably.

• Her thoughts were cloudy, her memory slipping in ways that felt frightening.

She wasn’t just sad or withdrawn. She was physically sick — and she knew it.  Still, because she had a history of depression, her new symptoms were brushed aside.

• Nobody asked about the pattern of her pain.

• Nobody noticed how it migrated from joint to joint.

• Nobody questioned why sleep didn’t restore her energy.

• Nobody considered that this could be something more.

What Happens When We Stop Asking Questions

I see this happen more often than I’d like to admit.

Once a label like “depression” — or any mental health diagnosis — is placed on a patient’s chart, everything that follows can get filtered through that lens.

1. Headaches? Probably stress.
2. Fatigue? Probably depression.
3. Brain fog? Probably anxiety.

But medicine — and healing — require curiosity. They require us to ask:

“What else could be going on?”

When I sat down and listened to her full story, it was clear her symptoms didn’t fit neatly into a mental health box. They fluctuated, migrated, and worsened unpredictably — patterns we often see with infection and inflammation, not simply mood disorders.

So we dug deeper.

I ordered testing for Lyme disease.

And we found it.

Lyme Disease Doesn’t Always Look the Way We Expect

One of the reasons Lyme disease is so often missed is because it doesn’t always look the way doctors are trained to recognize it.

1. No obvious tick bite.
2. No Bull’s-eye rash.
3. No early flu-like illness.

Instead, it can look like:

1. Depression
2. Anxiety
3. Chronic fatigue
4. Cognitive decline
5. Mood swings
6. Brain fog

Because Lyme can affect the immune system, nervous system, joints, and brain, it creates a complicated picture that’s easy to misread — especially when doctors stop asking questions.

It’s Not Just Depression: Other Mental Health Diagnoses Can Mask Lyme Disease

Depression isn’t the only diagnosis that can mask an underlying Lyme infection.

I’ve seen patients misdiagnosed with:

1. Anxiety disorders
2. Panic attacks
3. Bipolar disorder
4. Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
5. Somatic symptom disorder (told “it’s all in your head”)
6. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

These are real conditions — and they deserve real attention.
But Lyme disease can mimic many of their symptoms, including:

1. Emotional instability
2. Irritability
3. Panic episodes
4. Severe fatigue
5. Cognitive slowing and poor memory

When we anchor too quickly to a psychiatric explanation, we can miss a medical illness that is still active — and still treatable.

Treatment Changed Everything

When we treated my patient’s Lyme disease, her health started to return.

1. Her energy came back.
2. Her brain fog lifted.
3. Her joint pain improved.
4. Her mood stabilized — not because she changed medications, but because her infection was finally being treated.

She began feeling like herself again — regaining not just her physical strength, but her mental clarity and emotional resilience too.

It confirmed what she had known deep down all along:  This wasn’t just depression. This was Lyme disease.

If Your Symptoms Don’t Add Up, Keep Asking

If you’re struggling with symptoms that don’t feel fully explained — fatigue, brain fog, pain, mood changes — and you’ve been told it’s “just depression” or another mental health diagnosis, I encourage you:

1. Trust yourself.
2. Keep asking questions.
3. Find someone willing to look deeper.

Because sometimes, the real diagnosis is still waiting to be found.

Have you or someone you love been told it was just depression, anxiety, or something else — only to later discover it was Lyme disease?

👇 Share your story below. You are not alone.