Thanks for the replies everyone. I know what you mean Christina, I think (for me) it's easy to distinguish between being down and being depressed... and I feel like I can make a distinction between being happy and being hypo- but that's what I find harder. I only had one particularly bad hypo episode so still wondering if it was just a blip or not... but then I get the same out of control feeling maybe twice a year (getting more frequent), and it seems quite obvious when I go back to normal the week afterwards but then I start to wonder if it really happened and the doubt comes in again- so confusing!

Sometimes when I'm in a depressive episode I get all these racy thoughts, can't sleep, really angry and really pressured to do things, sometimes like looking at myself from the outside which my psych thinks is mixed- but I find it really hard to recognise these moods, they've only become obvious since I've hit my 20's and the pressure of music college is exacerbating it all I think. gaaah, I just wish I could reconcile it all and figure out what to deal with, what the problem is (if there is any problem at all). OCD doubts don't help with this at all );