.

I am freaking out. Due to some recent talks with my husband and reading on bipolar behaviors, I believe I suffer from Bipolar Disorder. I have so much of the signs/ symptoms I keep reading about. I see my primary care physician in August and I plan to ask him to recommend a Psychiatrist/Mental Health professional that can test me somehow and let me know if I do have it or not. But I am definitely freaking out. I feel like crying and get a knot in my throat every time I think about it. I am obsessing really. My head is just running with so many thoughts and I am worried cause I have 3 kids. It worries me that I might pass this on to them and I definitely can't talk about this with family or my husbands' for that matter. Even if I do get diagnosed with it. They are way too judgemental(my husbands' fam.) My family will think its nonsense for me to think I have a mental disorder. But the more I think about what they call episodes, the more I recognize them happening through my life since I was teen maybe. I think I started with the depression and then probably had my first manic episode when I was 17/18/19. Since my mid 20's I thought something was wrong with me, but all I could really plainly see was my depression. Until now or maybe unconsiously a few months ago I realized about my manic episodes. That is the main reason why I felt as if I was a totally different person during my manic episodes. Is that normal? To feel as if you might even be a total different person?

I plan to go to the library and borrow some books on bipolar disorder. I want to know as much about it as I can. Get myself ready before I see a mental health professional. I don't want to be bipolar. I saddens me and worries me. I am also going to look into mental health problems in my family. Any advise anyone?