I am a 16 year old girl who might also be gay and I have been reading up on the bipolar disorder because I was feeling really... wrong. I always thought of myself as the happy, confident person everyone loves, but for the past year, I have been having really severe depression states. Because everyone thinks I'm always happy, I had no one to talk to. I started cutting myself.

After a while I noticed that it kind of went in cycles, really up and feeling like I could do whatever I wanted. I could become president if I really felt like it. Then I fall down really suddenly and start to carve words and pictures into my hips and legs. I don't know why I go up and down so I've been wondering if it could be hormonal or a chemical imbalance. I've started skipping school when I feel like I just can't take it anymore.

It happens that my counselor found out and I had to tell my parents. Luckily, I was feeling really good at that time and played it so it didn't seem so serious. A while later, I mentioned that I thought it might be something hormonal but so far we haven't done anything about it.

There are also times I feel like I'm going insane because I feel like I COULD take over the world but I can't even move. I've tried writing in a journal but that didn't work and now it just has a lot of creepy drawings and some bloodstained pages. I promised I wouldn't cut myself anymore but it's really hard and I don't know what to do anymore. The release it gives me is really nice. It lets me sleep at night.

I know that you can't diagnose over the internet, but I was wondering if this sounds like average hormone swings or an actual disorder. If I really should be talking to someone, how do I do that? I'm a really closed person and because of stuff I've said in the past that's backfired, I don't actually talk, or know how to talk, seriously with people.