So here's the deal;
3 years ago, I was diagnosed with depression.
A year ago, that was changed/added to with BPD.
Now my psychiatrist is suggesting that I may have bipolar disorder, type II.
I'm not sure where I stand in all this. I know I NEVER agreed with the BPD one and it just disorientated me in terms of recovery. With the bipolar idea though I am starting to wonder.
Between roughly October and January I was supposedly 'hypomanic' and I took on about 4 projects of varying complexity, I wasn't sleeping much, I was exercising ridiclous amounts not related to my ED, and I was seriously over-confident and sort of euphoric. I had LOADS of plans for the future, was feeling great and everyone I knew was worried. I didn't see why. I thought I was fine. It didn't matter that I was getting up at 5 every morning to go to school at 6.30 to do my job in the canteen before school, or that I was staying out until 7pm every day and then doing schoolwork til midnight and feeling no effects at all.
And then I crashed and typical (quite severe) depression ensues. Thats been the case since january. Things have been awful and nearly all of the activities I was doing and enjoying before have stopped. My grades slipped, and my family started worrying about that instead. And so it wasn't until recently until someone made the link between the soaring highs and the crushing lows. And now they think that I am bipolar.
If this is true (and I'm sort of in denial) then I am on my way back into mania. I'm exercising more (related to ED) and doing loads of schoolwork, tons of stamina for concentration when not revising and not feeling tired at all despite not much food. I'm thinking fast. I'm staying up all night. I'm super creative (composed a piece of music in a night, and wrote 3 poems and wrote the first chapter of a novel which I fully intend to finish). I have grand plans to become an orthopedic surgeon. I have wanted to be a doctor since the middle of my depression which seems weird I know but yeah. And I am cheerful and hyperactive and generally over-energetic especially considering the fact that the week before last I was really suicidal. So yeah.
I don't see the point in this post except to see for myself written down what the highs and lows looked like next to eachother. And yes. They are quite marked.
I'm really scared. I don't want to have this 'label' and I don't want to come down from the highs. It is inevitable, if you are bipolar.
Hmmm.
What are other people's experiences? If there are any. I don't really know anything about it.
"That is why, for Christ's sake,
I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships,
in persecutions, in difficulties.
For when I am weak, then I am strong"
(2 Corinthians 12:13)
Thanks :) I'll be okay. Its just very up and down. 'Scuse the pun. xxx
"That is why, for Christ's sake,
I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships,
in persecutions, in difficulties.
For when I am weak, then I am strong"
(2 Corinthians 12:13)
To me.. that sounds like bipolar. (I'm bipolar and so is my brother) I actually have a friend who has BPD, and that's not how she is.
When you were manic - Were your thoughts going faster than you could keep up? Distractable a bit?
Your story sounds so familiar. I too was initially diagnosed with depression and tried various drug treatments most of which didn't work. Then after a number of addmissions for S/H and ODs a doctor i had never seen before diagnosed me with BPD, even thought i didn't fit any of the other diagnostic criteria. Eventually my GP considered bipolar and tried me on meds more along those lines, they kind of helped. Eventually i had a major depressive episode that put me in hospital for 2months and around of ECT. That treatment combined with low dose mood stabilser and anti-d's I have been well and mostly stable for the last 16months. Thats not to say i don't have bad days or extra ordinary good days but they are not as often and don't last as long. The important thing for me is that I don't feel numb anymore. So don't give up hope.
Yeah definitely fast thoughts. And I could concentrate for long periods of time but was easily distracted? It was weird.
I dunno. I find it so hard to accept that I wasn't just happy, because it'd been so long since I was.
Thanks for the replies. Jackie I'm really glad you've been feeling good. It definitely gives me hope that I can get better. 'Bipolar' sounds like such a death sentence sometimes.
"That is why, for Christ's sake,
I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships,
in persecutions, in difficulties.
For when I am weak, then I am strong"
(2 Corinthians 12:13)
I know you don't want to have a 'label' hun, but having a diagnoses is different - it's only so they can help you better if they know whats wrong(: Hope you're ok. x
Being diagnosed just helps them treat you more effiently and you help yourself... in a "I know why I'm like this now I can deal with it better"-sort-of-way. At least, that's how I've always viewed it.
And that sounds like bipolar to me, try doing some research on it.
this is a side thought but from what I have read about at stuff bipolar is more treatable and they know more about it than bpd, and have more long term info on it...
You made up your mind to torture mine!
If you read a scar like a book, you will relise the story in which you over look
From what I've heard BPD and bipolar get confused a lot. And depression obviously with that being a major part of bipolar (i.e. you may have had depression just not YET had the mania so diagnosed with depression)
"Keep your heart open to dreams. For as long as there's a dream, there is hope, and as long as there is hope, there is joy in living."
Yeah what you are all saying makes sense! I am definitely relieved that I don't have BPD. Nah, I know that the mania stuff was kind of weird thinking back. I'm glad it can be treated. I'm just afraid of getting to adulthood and not being able to go to uni properly or get a job and I really want to be a doctor. I always knew there was a reason I liked Stephen Fry so much!
Thanks for all the help. I'm in a slightly more organised state of mind which has allowed me to think about it properly. And I am glad they know properly what I have now. Because if they didn't and the mania comes back (i think it is) then then they might just think I'm better, and I won't get any help. So it is good. I know that deep down. Just a little scarier than straightforward depression.
"That is why, for Christ's sake,
I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships,
in persecutions, in difficulties.
For when I am weak, then I am strong"
(2 Corinthians 12:13)
