Thanks, CANDC. You don't know me (yet?)--I'm the mad scientist researcher and have read a LOT about bipolar since the diagnosis. (It was kind of you to post all those links, though.)

But I hadn't though about the social/antisocial phases being an alternation of manic (hypomanic) and depressive. When I've been wildly social and then have become very unhappy with it--maybe depressive. Then when I think, "Hey, I don't need people and I'll be happier without them!"--maybe hypomanic. And so on. This sounds very likely. Thank you for taking the time to consider and suggest it.

In all my researching I still haven't found anything about what an unstable sense of self feels like, and I'm still hoping someone here will describe it.