I'm seeing my Uni pdoc again (after a year and a half break whilst I was at home) on Monday and I'm really nervous. Basically I feel that I have a degree of bipolar, but I don't know how to bring it up with him. It wasn't until Christmas last year that I suddenly noticed this pattern of me feeling really, really good for a few days (I'm depressed at the moment), then feeling really agitated/mixed and intensely suicidal for a few weeks, then crashing into a deep depression. This cycle had happened 6 times that I remember/can prove from diary entries whilst on different meds, and twice off meds.

It's unlikely that I will be diagnosed with Bipolar disorder as you have to have full-blown mania in the UK to get that diagnosis (they don't recognise BP2) and I'm pretty sure I haven't been manic, more likely hypomanic. But it's important to me for these mood swings to be taken into account as it might open up new avenues of treatment for me (I'm running out of options) and I want to know what kind of prognosis I'm looking at i.e. is this a lifelong thing or a one off? I've been depressed 5 years now and I don't know what else to do.

Anyway, I'm not asking for anyone to diagnose me over the internet as I know it doesn't work like that. Basically I want to know if anyone has any tips on how to bring this up with pdoc. I know that doctors in general hate it when people diagnose themselves with things they've found on the internet, but I think it's important to mention. I just don't know how. Any ideas?

*Willow*