I've had many symptoms for several years that I think could mean I am bipolar, but since I'm still in my teens I'm not sure if mood swings of this severity are normal. So it all started when I was about 8 years old: I started feeling severely depressed, suicidal, self-harming, restricting my food, and overall just really hating myself, especially my appearance. Then as years went on I developed some serious eating disorders for about 2 years until I eventually tried to kill myself in 2011 when I was just 13. After that I got help and pulled myself out of depression--and then completely flipped the other way. I started feeling like I was literally the most amazing person on the planet, having zero insecurities, and believing that I could and should rule the world. I felt completely out of control, like I was high all the time and like my words would come out before I had time to filter them at all, when before I was a very level-headed composed kid. That lasted for months until I came crashing down again for a couple weeks and then finally leveled out. But it wasn’t long until I experienced the same thing again. I've just come off of my 4th or 5th episode of what I believe may be mania, where I spend all my money on raves, binge drink every weekend, and participate in sexual acts wayyy beyond what I should be for this age, and justify it all because I have this fear of dying with regrets and huge bursts of energy. I usually experience a couple months of this out of control feeling, accompanied with a feeling like my life is on high speed and some paranoia at night that only lets me have a couple hours of sleep a night, and either level out for a month or so and go back to that or have a couple weeks of depression between. Its starting to affect my relationships because I cut off my family and tell them huge elaborate lies to get away with the crazy things I do and my friends get sick of my extreme obnoxious confidence, and my schooling as well because I either am too elated to worry about it or Im too depressed to function. I feel like my family and my doctor will simply dismiss this all as teen hormones so I wanted some perspective from people who have been diagnosed and experience bipolar disorder first hand.