Bipolar Disorder Forum - Help!!! Am I Bipolar??please Help!!

Hello,

This is my first time using anything like this. I have been reading the posts on here for awhile though and I wanted to share my story and ask for advice. I am sorry for the length of the story. I wanted to make sure that I included all necessary information for you to get an idea of my possible condition. I think that I might be bipolar. Any advice/opinions would be greatly appreciated. I am 24 years old and have a girlfriend of 5yrs who lives with me. Her 10 year old daughter and our 2year old daughter also live with me.

My story begins about 5/6 years ago. After high school, I got an academic scholarship for the locally University. I did well for about a year. I have always had trouble focusing in school. I have always gotten by on day before test cramming. I am a huge procrastinator.

My second year in college I moved in with some friends and began drinking and using cocaine. I dropped out of school the following semester. I couldn’t handle working full-time going to school full-time and partying. The following two years I used cocaine on a regular basis and drank a lot. I always held a down a steady job though. Just worked and partied. My cocaine use tapered when I began dating my current girlfriend. She had kids and so I started to try and become more of a family man. One time after a night of using cocaine I went kind of schizo. I came home and my girlfriend was upset at me for doing it. I was drinking. Then I just blanked out. Apparently thought that someone was after me and I jumped out of the apt window and when I came to I was in a rain tunnel some distance from my apt. This is the only time that this ever happened and it hasn’t happened since. I have heard reports of cocaine use causing progress to schizophrenia though.

Skip ahead a couple of years and me and my girlfriend had a daughter in January of 2005. I had really cut back on cocaine use before she was born. Using very rarely but I still drank on occasion. When my daughter was born I decided to quit cocaine and have only used a couple of times since she was born. I fell in love with my daughter. I have never felt love like the love that I have for her. So I stopped using realizing that there was no future in that and it was not what I wanted. I desperately wanted to be a great father. I quit drinking and only drank about once every two weeks or so I would go out with my friends. When I did drink, I would always get completely trashed. I have always smoked pot and had love for pills as well. My drinking was a lot less than normal and I didn’t see it as a problem. I smoked pot on a regular basis and popped pills whenever I could get my hands on them.

Last August or so, I began to get severe nosebleeds. I also found that I rarely had any energy. I would have trouble getting out of bed and then when I did get out of bed would usually have trouble staying awake. I remember a lot of time I would lock my daughter in her room to play and I would try and play with her but would end up falling asleep on the bed because I just had no energy. One night, my nose started bleeding and I couldn’t get it to stop. It bled for about 2hours. I started getting really light headed and felt that I was going to pass out. My girlfriend rushed me to the ER. Oddly enough the first thing that they give you for a sever nosebleed is cocaine (lol). They eventually got my nose to stop bleeding by cauterizing the wound and sent me on my way. The ER doc said that I had cut my nose in the prime spot for a sever nose bleed and that is why it was bleeding so severely. This began to worry me. Along with some other symptoms like numbness in my arms and legs at night when I slept began to make me think that something was wrong with me. Seriously wrong. So I went to the doctor. I told my history and explained to him about my drinking. He took some blood and did some tests along with an HIV screen. It took two weeks to get the test results back. I was driving myself crazy with worry during these two weeks because I felt for sure that there was something wrong with me. I thought I had HIV. The test results came back and everything was negative. The only thing that showed up was really low testosterone. The doc said that this could be caused by my drinking and he thought that I could get it up by stopping drinking. So I did. I began a health craze and decided to detoxify my body and for the next month or two I exercised and ate nothing but organic foods. Was on a very strict diet and fasted about once a week. I did feel better during this time. Better about myself and about life in general. But then I became depressed again. I began popping pills again. This lasted for about a week and I snapped out of it and did the Master Cleanse to detox again. After the master cleanse, I broke down again and became depressed. Then I got on a weight lifting program because I found that the only way to raise testosterone is by lifting weights. I really thought low testosterone must be what is causing my problems since it was the only thing that turned up. So I went on a super strict diet again. Started lifting 5times a week. My girlfriend, bless her heart, is standing by me through all of this, making my meals for my super strict diet. So every morning I got up at 4:30am and went to the gym before work. This lasted for about 3mos. I felt pretty good too. I felt better about myself about life in general and enjoyed working out every day and eating healthy. My girlfriend hated it. She had to do a lot of work for my diet. After 3mos I decided to take a break for the holidays. My girlfriend wanted me to take a break even though I didn’t want to I gave and decided to take the month of December off to start again in January. I fell back into a depression though. I began taking pills again and one month turned into two and now three. I have been on pill now for about 2.5 mos, almost non-stop. I have been really depressed and really tired. Can’t get out of bed in the morning, not feeling good about myself or life at all. While researching Oxycontin and its effects. I read about a guy who was taking oxycontin for bipolar disorder. I began to read about bipolar disorder and its effects. I realized that oxycontin really made me feel a lot better about myself and life. My girlfriend didn’t even know I was on it because I was more ‘normal’ on it than off it. As I read more about bipolar on the forums I began to think about the last 6mos of my life and how it was up and down a lot. I asked my girlfriend about it and she said that she has thought that I was bipolar for awhile now. She just never told me thinking that I wouldn’t have believed her and it would have started a fight. I definitely spend more time depressed then manic. If I am bipolar, my ups and downs have seemed to get increasingly severe in intensity and length though in the last six months. When I am up/manic as they call it I don’t feel like I have very many of the symptoms that are listed. I have no trouble sleeping. I don’t talk a lot ever. There are a lot of the symptoms that don’t really fit the bill for how I feel during those times. My girlfriend really wants me to get help, but I have a problem. About 5mos ago, I started my own business. I haven’t had health insurance since. I make too much to qualify for Medicaid since we are not married. I can’t afford a shrink or the medications if they were to prescribe some to me. Is there anything that I can do. I trust my girlfriend and what she thinks but I don’t really feel like I am that bad. I have read a lot about people who seem to be pretty messed up by this. I have been with my girlfriend for 5yrs. We have had lots of ups and downs but we have gotten through and I haven’t been on any legal medication. I know that a lot my depression right now is a result of opiate withdraw. But I think there is definitely something wrong with me. It is like I have been searching for something to make me feel better for a long time and have always turned to drugs or alcohol. I now think that I have finally found what might be my problem and there is nothing that I can do about it. ARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!! If only I lived in Canada aye . Any help/advice/suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Sorry for the super duper long post.