Ok, so I'm an undiagnosed 17 year old who believes he may have bipolar.
I have suffered from bouts of something resembling depression quite a couple of times during my teens, however, it was with the arrival of something that seemed to fit a manic phase that I began to wonder.
About this time last year I went a little bit mad. To say that it had no basis in rationale would be a lie, I was just coming to terms with losing my best friend to shifting social climates, even falling for her a little, perhaps in an attempt to keep her close; anyway, she kept slipping away anyway and I slowly became reckless and harmful, not just to her but to others around me, filled with a mixture of complete indifference to everything but my own hedonism and a sort of philosophical urge to "mess around" with things. When I fall for girls, I tend to fall hard emotionally, but the girl I developed feelings for during this time was different to me. It was like we were both playing games with each other (n.b. she had a boyfriend but obviously at this point that didn't matter to me), and it was FUN. I think I'd have managed to seduce her if I tried; I think I didn't try because I enjoyed the games, the tension with her, too much. I was out drinking almost every night, suffering from extreme insomnia, throwing myself into opportunities to make friends, break friends, make people laugh, make people cry, seducing anything vaguely aesthetically pleasing to me. It was like the world and me were both made of plastic, and I could bend anything, including myself, any which way, according to my shallowest whim. I felt arrogant and all powerful, and in my head I seemed to justify my feelings of self importance every single day in my reckless controlling mannerisms.
This lasted up until around March this year. The difference, in retrospect was fairly telling. I was overcome by a feeling of love for the girl I was interested in; all of a sudden I felt vulnerable to her, needed her to like me. I had to get drunk one night to be able to tell her I loved her (Just the sentence, then quick topic switch before she could reply), didn't push it further, worried about hurting her, hurting her boyfriend. I backed away from her out of fear of being hurt, all the time feeling very strong feelings for her. My social situation stabilised. My sexual energy vanished (I wasn't interested in anyone other than THAT girl at this point anyway, whereas before I'd known I liked her but anyone seemed like fair game). At one point a couple of weeks later her and I were talking about that night. I laughed nervously, and told her I couldn't believe the things I'd done. She replied "Things you didn't do?" and walked off. I was left stunned, unable to act, very upset. By contrast, the world and me now felt like steel. Nothing was changing, she'd always be with him, I'd always love her. There was no aspiration, no hope. Before I'd drank for fun, now I drank every night to escape.
Fast forward to September. I'm no longer drinking every night, instead I'm drinking huge quantities of caffeine drink. I'm no longer unable to sleep, I'm sleeping far too much, I have a 30% absence record at college due to inability or lack of motivation to leave bed in the morning. The sudden realisation that not only did I feel I had emotional symptoms of Bipolar disorder, but that in fact I seemed to have flipped drug of choice to balance myself out, and that my sleeping patterns seemed to coincide roughly with emotional state, pushed me still further to believe that I have BPD. The other night, I sat at my computer, feeling awful. I believe I was reading something by foucault, and it filled me with a real sense of emptiness and distaste. The world seemed pretty pointless, and I wondered why I was living. This was a huge downer, making the steel of the previous months seem merely like a cynical worldview. However, whilst listening to Radiohead - Street spirit, I got as upset as I possibly could and started laughing quite hard and loud, I felt really really odd. I felt fairly stupid, the things I'd been thinking about seemed irrelevant or temporary, Foucault's philosophy seemed to promise me opportunity for human aspiration. It's like, every single "input" at that point in time was the same, but all of a sudden the interpretation was completely different. I went through yesterday in this sort of happy-go-lucky mood. I flirted with a girl I know in a way I wouldn't have a week ago, talked to the girl I really like (Or liked, upon talking to her I wasn't sure how I felt anymore...I'm not sure if I still really like her or whether I've been so caught up liking her that she's now more a goal than something I really desire); I don't feel destructive or dangerously manic, but I feel between normal and irrationally happy. Part of me hopes I'm about to slip back into mania. Another point; I do have a history of mental illness in my family. My aunt is diagnosed schizophrenic (although the family is embittered and feels that it was sloppy diagnosis, they practically MADE her admit that she heard voices, when her real symptoms are mood swings and delusions.). She is on medication that I believe is used to treat BPD. My mother is not formally diagnosed with anything, but I've known from a young age that she's subject to occasional delusions, usually religious in nature.
So, a couple of questions
I know that since I know a lot about bipolar disorder, I'm liable to see the symptoms in my emotions and behaviour; however, do you think I'd be fair to self diagnose in this case?
If you do suspect I have bipolar, do you think I should go see a psychiatrist? Despite my often heavy self medication of just about anything I can get my hands on, I don't like the idea of being prescribed mood alterers; and I'm not a big fan of psychiatry as a whole anyway (agreeing, at least theoretically, with Szasz.)
Do you have any words of warning? To be honest, If I slipped back into mania, I doubt I'd want a diagnosis, I'm kinda tempted to avoid getting one just because I may slip back there in the future; I can't lie, I may have been reckless, but it was great. Much better than any drug.
Any other advice? Thanks for reading