Unsure whether I'm bipolar

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I was originally going to put this is the chat thread up top, so there are some references to some posts in that thread in here. The post is just very long and I didn't want to distract from the conversation currently going on in there.

Basically I wanted to find out what ASD/bipolar was like as I'm currently going through the diagnosis process for yet another disorder. But I'm doing this because the symptoms are getting worse and it can no longer be what I thought it was. I was once content with mild ODD and PMDD but as you read on you'll find out how that it may be more than that.

Post starts:

For starters I’m glad I came to Wrong Planet as I have been conversing mostly with people who are bipolar/ADHD and living with one that is just bipolar. Although I’m not sure. She is my sister and has OCD too but I’m unsure if there is any ASD.
I was wondering how ASD/bipolar manifested as from what I have seen in others is mostly extroverted behavior. I am a severe introvert and your classic autistic person. As a child I had very narrow interests and didn’t speak much until I was a teenager and wouldn’t have had my first conversation until I was about 24.

Since I’ve been on Ritalin for ADHD I’ve been able to speak to people more, learn social skills and have regular conversations. There are times when it’s just about an interest or it’s very one-sided. Classic Asperger’s stuff.

From what I’ve read so far in this thread it relates to what I’ve been going through lately. I want to read more of the thread, I want to read every page actually, but I just had this urge to post. I was literally shaking over it. I get like that if I hold off doing things I want to do.
I’m not diagnosed with bipolar but my doctor said it could be a possibility and my friend who is bipolar/ADHD says she thinks I may have developed it. The interesting thing is like others in the thread I do seem to have PTSD from almost getting mugged and the symptoms seem to be getting worse. I may have had symptoms for years though. In my early 20s I developed PMDD (severe pms) and had severe meltdowns, fell into depressive states and did attempt suicide before being put on anti-depressants. I was better on them for a while. I don’t remember much from when I was on them. I had no goals like I have now.

When I noticed my PMDD returning and getting worse each month I decided to keep a mood journal. The symptoms should have vanished and not really last longer than two weeks. But they’re still here, just not as intense as they were during PMDD. Actually I think PMDD has started again. There was no break in symptoms.

My worst symptoms are the anger outbursts and the continuing rage I feel, and it often cycles. To be honest I’m not sure if my hyperactivity is related to ADHD but hypomania. I get the euphoria, the feeling like I can achieve anything, and this feeling like I’m this higher plane of consciousness to people and they just can’t understand me. I’m always sharing my ideas with people and they either say I’m a conspiracy theory nut, schizophrenic or ignore me outright.

I go through depression too. I think it’s only short because I get myself out of it by focusing on interests and goals. Doing this while I’m not going through a creative spurt is frustrating as I’m not achieving the same results I would when I was being hypomanic. And when people praise me I don’t even know if they’re being honest. I feel like telling them but I know I can do better. Save your praise until then.
I think I’m going through a low period now. I’ve tried to get back into my writing but I barely write anything down and when I do it’s like I’m straining my brain so hard that after a couple of hours and only two pages I’m spent. Drawing is easier because I don’t like using my head when I draw and I try to ignore the fact that I think I could do better than what I end up with.

Still, I’m trying to learn the piano, an idea that came out of nowhere. Well, I kind of get obsessed with people and want to be like them, or at least, start doing things they did as if I’m writing my biography as it happens for when I am that world famous writer. Oh, by the way, I’m going to shake the sci-fi world. I’m going to be a famous author and screenwriter.

I’ve been creative with food for the first time in a long time. I usually like the same old meals, same old ingredients. I’ve been introducing other ingredients and trying to make meals that are so far away from the routine. Three times it worked out but tonight I royally screwed up. And I was so disappointed in myself I ate it all, cleaned everything up, left no trace of my failure.

I’m sorry this is so long but I’ve wanted to talk about this for ages. I abandoned my own blog because I no longer wanted to reveal myself to strangers, even though I was told how much it helped people not diagnosed, newly diagnosed and parents of autistic children. I also just looked back at what I wrote and no longer felt anything for it. I must have been manic when I wrote the last couple of posts because I kept thinking ‘WTF is this?’ I was embarrassed for my highly praised posts. One was even shared on radio.

God this is getting too long. But I want to share things that I haven’t shared with anyone else. Although I do keep spilling out secret thoughts to people I feel close to when I’m drunk. I’m paranoid. I think people on the street are stalking me. I used to think they would attack me…still do, but it’s more kind of they are planning to do something. Otherwise it’s just people mocking me. Otherwise I don’t care what they think about me. I don’t care to fit in. Normal people just can’t experience me. I’m too full on. They can’t open their minds up to even consider the other possibilities to science.

I read Synchronicity by F. David Peat and my mind was opened. I don’t know if I’m delusional but I’ve always believed events had to happen at a certain time and they determined my path. Synchronicity is all about that. I see the same numbers everywhere. 27 is following me. 2:27, 12:27 (every time I look up, decide to take an action, or remember I should be doing something) and 1:44 (which reminds me of a scripture verse). I suppose I do sound crazy. It didn’t help that I got into Jung as well.

So that’s one example of me feeling like I had this enlightenment that no one else had.

Although these moments have happened ever slightly since I was about 12 years old (I once felt called that I was supposed to look for the anti-Christ) I don’t think I was bipolar back then. I think it might be my medication. Like I said I was never hyperactive before, not so much that it was noticeable. I am now. I’m also impulsive. Even without medication I get these ideas and feelings like I have to do them because no one else will and I have to be the one to start making sure things change for the better. That could be an invention, a revolutionary movement led by me, or a groundbreaking story.

I know I can’t stay on my medication forever, but I feel lost without it even for a few short days. I went off it for 2 months once and could kind of manage but I couldn’t write. And then when I went back on I stopped wanting to write but I have been through periods of intense writing. I went back through my journal entries and was surprised to see how much I was writing before I just stopped and when I tried again I struggled. And I’m still trying. It’s all I want to do and it’s just the right time to write something like this. The world needs to hear this story and watch the films.

I’m in the same situation as one poster at the beginning of the thread in that I don’t want to be like someone else who has bipolar. I know we all experience it differently and I keep telling myself I’m safe as long as I don’t drink like crazy. It’s physically impossible for me to do that. And I don’t get angry and ranty over people like this person does. There’s a lot I get angry over. Mostly it’s about people trying to control the way people think, it’s things that give me anxiety like running out of food (after people have eaten my food). I can also take any opportunity to argue. Something just triggers me to disagree with things I would agree with or have no opinion on. I’ve lost friends over it.

I can’t see myself getting into risky behavior either. I’m too afraid to be outside for too long. I have the autistic fear of change which got worse since PTSD. I’m trying my best to get over it but it’s not easy. I won’t go into stores that I’ve never been to before. I don’t want to go to music venues I don’t go to that often, which makes it hard to be a band photographer. I want to go out more because I feel like ‘a caged animal in both mind and in between the walls of my house.’ I can’t even go out to buy myself new clothes. I shop for clothes at shopping street, a wide open area with enclosed stores on each side, in my friend’s town.

I have a feeling like I haven’t said everything. I never do. It’s just tiring trying to remember what’s autism, what’s ADHD and what’s bipolar and what I must do to minimize these problems. But for now I’m focused on these up and down moods, trying to avoid the depressed states, controlling my anger and direct hypomania towards something productive. It led me towards the piano. I just get lost in what I play even if I can’t completely read music yet. My sister is calling me a genius and I’m unsure if I do have a natural talent or she’s just decided I’m the genius she says I am. I dunno. I haven’t done much with this apparent genius of mine. It doesn’t come out on an IQ test, socially or even on a résumé.

What’s new for me is the cycling of moods. I once went through a change of mood every ten seconds. It hurt my head. I felt like I was going crazy. Now they’re spaced out. As I’m charting these moods to help get a definitive diagnosis I’m doing ok with hourly changes, the rapid cycling is hard to keep up with, but the monthlies are where I get stuck. I think since December I’ve been less creative and falling in and out of depression, I’ve been getting glimmers of hypomania and motivation and then it goes back into depression. Lately I’ve been pushing myself to get out of bed at around 8am, nothing later than 9:30am. But I keep failing. I get a few good days then I stay up longer and wake up late and drag myself out because I don’t want to stay in bed past 10am, because that’s my time to take my medication. I’m completely thrown off my routine if I don’t start at 10am but I haven’t kept to it in so long I no longer care.

Not long ago I had difficulty sleeping but I suppose when you go to bed at 3am after playing piano for 3 straight hours, you do tend to just nod off quickly.

This is so long. I just hope I’m saying those things I meant to say. I’ll stop now.

Post end.

I do have more questions about things mentioned in this forum I don't quite understand, like what is the difference between Major Depressive disorder and depression? I'm just trying to see where I am. And my doctor will be involved in this journey if he wants to be. Sometimes I think he is waiting to see what happens overtime before he gives a diagnosis and puts me on medication (other than Ritalin) and other times I think he's yet again downgrading these symptoms as nothing more than a person who lacks structure and socialisation (his exact words by the way). He turned my PTSD into an adjustment disorder even though it's been a year, and there's been no overcoming of these symptoms. They did go away for awhile but came back after PMDD got worse and decided to stay indefinitely.

I don't know how to respond since my usual interaction with humans is either to blurt out what is preoccupying my mind or to look for a question I can answer . I'm very rusty in people skills after years of staying away from them but ....

That said, I appreciate your post because it feels comforting to me to see someone else has problems with brain that hops to and fro .
I've been Dxed Aspie but have a lot of ADHD traits, have PTSD from being robbed several times and attempted rape, homelessness and un-diagnosed AS for so many years . Before their was such a thing as a AS DX, they thought I might be atypical border-line because I self harmed and drank to get drunk and had unstable relationships but didn't have the anger or hot to cold feelings for people .

I wish we came in neat little packages like diagnosing would suggest but I think so much of this keeps changing within us with both the influence of hormones and external factors that we are trying to adapt to . In some ways . I wonder if all these, sometime contradictory diagnostic traits and issues, are not like a form of MPD, where we keep trying to switch from one of our selves to the other to adapt to our changing external and internal environments .

You do sound like you could be bipolar, since you have both 'ups' and 'downs'.

I wish I could be clearer right now in response to you, but due to recovering from a cold I've had a bit of a "symptom relapse" and my brain is somewhat muddled/foggy, in and out of focus sort of thing (you can probably tell that from my attempt to respond to you in the chat thread).

I could write pages of my experience here, but most of it is in the chat thread so you probably will have read it. I'm pretty sure I've posted the diagnostic criteria for Bipolar up there at least once. The difference between major depression and bipolar is that with Bipolar you have to have experienced mania, hypomania, or a mixed episode at least once as well as a major depressive episode (although in some rare cases there are people with bipolar who only experience "ups" and not "downs"), and to be diagnosed with major depression you have to have experienced at least one major depressive episode.

To be honest I can relate to probably 70% of what you've said. I used to be pretty introverted (typical aspergers) and just read all the time, until I started on ritalin in grade 11 and I suddenly became extroverted. Then at college I would constantly be swinging between mood states, to have all kinds of grandiose ideas about things I would do/be - I believed myself to be "special"; that I would become a world famous author/singer/artist/scientist/whatever I was focused on at the time. I also felt deep-seated sort of despair/intense drive, felt like if I didn't become world famous in terms of achieving big my life wouldn't be worth living/would be over. I also became very outgoing and socially successful, which really wasn't like me, it was like a personality change. But I would be constantly swinging between elation and despair, self adoration and self loathing, and kept taking on more and more creative projects and things. I tried to be everything.

I don't think the exact process behind which stressful events can trigger bipolar is known, but there is a theory that it is related to circadian rhythms (patterns of eating, sleeping). As you said, I know something is wrong/I am experiencing mood symptoms if I start breaking my routines, getting up at the wrong times, etc. Apparently disruption to these routines can trigger bipolar mood episodes. I had severe onset and ultradian cycling after a relationship where we were up all hours of the night and my sleep cycle was completely screwed, but I had other stressors happening as well.

But yes, my experience after that would be best described as "experiencing every symptom in the book". Just this absolute mishmash of symptoms, all different emotions, anxiety, behaviour all over the place, ability to focus changing constantly through the day, I also experienced irrational anger and paranoia. It's hard to explain due to complexity. I remember a psyc asked me to keep a mood diary where i should rate my mood each day on a scale of 1 (super depressed) to 10 (super manic) and i said that was impossible because of all the different symptoms I went through on a daily basis. The only way I could explain it was through writing out a paragraph or two describing all the symptoms and behaviours that happened each day.

I still have some of what I wrote saved on my computer, if you would like to read it (feel it may help you). I won't post it publically but I can send it in a PM.


anyway, this is the criteria for a major depressive episode according to the DSM-IV if that helps. Sorry for the bad formatting (copy pasting from my uni library online access to it - I study psychology)


Five (or more) of the following symptoms have been present during the same 2-week period and represent a change from previous functioning; at least one of the symptoms is either (1) depressed mood or (2) loss of interest or pleasure.Note: Do not include symptoms that are clearly due to a general medical condition, or mood-incongruent delusions or hallucinations.

1. depressed mood most of the day, nearly every day, as indicated by either subjective report (e.g., feels sad or empty) or observation made by others (e.g., appears tearful). Note: In children and adolescents, can be irritable mood.

2. markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, activities most of the day, nearly every day (as indicated by either subjective account or observation made by others)

3. significant weight loss when not dieting or weight gain (e.g., a change of more than 5% of body weight in a month), or decrease or increase in appetite nearly every day. Note: In children, consider failure to make expected weight gains.

4. insomnia or hypersomnia nearly every day

5. psychomotor agitation or retardation nearly every day (observable by others, not merely subjective feelings of restlessness or being slowed down)

6. fatigue or loss of energy nearly every day

7. feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt (which may be delusional) nearly every day (not merely self-reproach or guilt about being sick)

8. diminished ability to think or concentrate, or indecisiveness, nearly every day (either by subjective account or as observed by others)

9. recurrent thoughts of death (not just fear of dying), recurrent suicidal ideation without a specific plan, or a suicide attempt or a specific plan for committing suicide

ALL THE FOLLOWING CRITERIA MUST BE MET:

The symptoms do not meet criteria for a Mixed Episode (see Criteria for Mixed Episode).

The symptoms cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

The symptoms are not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, a medication) or a general medical condition (e.g., hypothyroidism).

The symptoms are not better accounted for by Bereavement, i.e., after the loss of a loved one, the symptoms persist for longer than 2 months or are characterized by marked functional impairment, morbid preoccupation with worthlessness, suicidal ideation, psychotic symptoms, or psychomotor retardation.

Don't worry about the fogginess. I'm feeling really fatigued. Those meds lasted about 2 hours.

I can understand irrational anger and paranoia.

I've been reading up about bipolar 1 and I have definitely had mania in that first year I was on Ritalin. I even talked about how productive I was at length to whoever would sit down long enough, as though I was proud of it. I wrote two Doctor Who fan fictions. The second one in 21 days. Then my mental energy for writing lasted only a few hours before exhaustion. I thought it was the meds making me use more of my brain or was from the seizures I had in 2010.

I've definitely felt I've had major depression or a major depressive episode. A few years ago it got so bad that I couldn't take longer than 3 days, so I decided to do all I could to ignore the symptoms and keep pushing myself otherwise I'd not be able to get out of it and couldn't take the pain. Now though I lose all sense of emotions and become quite mechanical.

Also, in 2010 I had such severe appetite suppression I went from 56kg to 47kg which is below healthy weight. I couldn't eat yet I would have blood sugar crashes. I couldn't have a menstrual cycle for 5 months. I took 20mg Ritalin twice a day. The doctor recommended 30mg 3x day.

I'm not sure when the rapid cycling started. PMDD symptoms were always about sudden anger outbursts, less effective medication, depression/suicidal ideation, unable to stop myself from arguing/ easily upset by people, migraines/seizures, a burst of creativity and fierce argument style turned into a rational conversation style. The last two not including this one were bad. The last one involved rapid cycling. The third last one was hardly noticeable.

All I know is they're definitely happening now.

For the record I don't have a public self, just a medicated one.

I have a type of socially coping mimicry though. Kind of like echolalia/echopraxia but it's not dissociative.

You sound a lot like me. I'm pretty stereotypically bipolar now as an adult, or at least how stereotypical you can be with all the other diagnoses I have, but I'm not diagnosed. It's messed up my life sometimes but it's not all bad.
The difference between "major depressive disorder" (which I was diagnosed with as a child) and "depression" as far as I know is that the first is recurrent (or chronic) and I guess you can figure out the "major" part yourself

Speaking of Jung, this documentary is good!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O67a8_XXqK4[/youtube]

Dr..Kay Redfeild Jamison has some really good books on the subject.Your library should have some.She is also Bi-polar and is Associate Professor of Psychiatry at John Hopkins.
The best thing you can do is educate yourself about yor illness.
NAMI (national alliance for the mentally ill )has free literature and mood charts.

LOL. Thanks Doc. I can't focus on words properly right now so I'm not reading over all of that. And sorry for not quoting.

Although I did pick up a few things.

I know what the differences between introverted and extroverted is from then man who coined the two terms, Carl Jung.

I don't think I'm better than people with other mental illnesses. I'm not sure where that one comes from. I do sometimes think I'm better than all people but that's when I know it's time to get off FB.


However, I do understand the overreaction as I do that a lot myself. I tend to jump from one mood to another.

Just because I don't understand much about a disorder I may or may not have it doesn't mean I don't have them. I never knew much about autism and ADHD.

Anyway, I just came here to say that I can start to see differences between NT bipolar vs. autism bipolar. There were 3 of us, sisters, one diagnosed bipolar, the second manic on anti-depressants and me, hating myself for completely losing control that day (maybe I should say due to mania, maybe not). We're all drinking red wine. I know...bad. But I have been on and off severely depressed and cycling back into extremely elevated states. Anywho, I just notice a difference in how they show their symptoms than I do. I'm actually more reserved around people than I would be on my own.

Anyway, thank you stranger on the internet for diagnosing me. I've done plenty of reading up on bipolar so I don't need to read what you quoted. If I was a narcissist I'd probably not have so much remorse about some of the things I say. Not been labelled with that one yet.

I probably have some sort of mood disorder. Whether it's just PMDD or it's something more. My two sisters tell me that this runs in the family though.