Hi! Why I'm posting here - I'd like to hear any thoughts. Psychologists have not helped much so far and I want to get educated on this stuff more. I'd just like to understand more in general. I've highlighted the main points in bold/italic if that helps. Thanks!

I have some sort of emotional dysregulation, not by default, only if triggered to go into episode and I thought it was manic/hypomanic bipolar but I was told that this could be borderline because in my episodes my moods are not constant, I do not have the ability to maintain a type of emotion for long and it can change into another type very fast, from negative to positive etc.

In the last four years, except for 1.5 years when I unfortunately developed a shopping addiction (which I successfully got rid of), I've been regularly experiencing this weird sort of episode. When I had the shopping addiction I felt my normal self though. No episodes then. No weird way of thinking or emotional problems! Interesting. But it was costly. So I stopped with that. I was not surprised that the episodes slowly returned afterwards.

The episodes look like, I first start overthinking, analysing crap, unnecessarily, think too much in general, I may think of some weird stuff too, locked in my mind overall, so much that I start to neglect daily tasks and everything, I just sit at my computer or in the bedroom and think total bs stuff. It's really no good, sometimes almost feeling schizo.

Sleep also is skipped due to that, I maybe even forget to eat. I definitely forget to do my sports training.. which is no good. This can last up to a week. At least once a month.

Then eventually I get some emotional outbursts, that part lasts only for a day or two maybe, I get exhausted too fast by that. Mostly feeling upset, crying, stuff like that, I do not show them to people if I can help it. I'm usually alone anyway. And I'm good at hiding how I feel if I feel anything except for some anger (outside the episodes).

Then when I'm exhausted, I feel like my mind is clean, no thinking anymore which is good and then I return to baseline, next day I feel like I crashed for a few hours then I'm entirely back to baseline. Please note below my description of this baseline.

When lucky the whole thing is over in a couple days. That's been more often than the week long episodes actually.

In the first two years beyond all this, I had two episodes that were not only a whole week long but ended in a psychotic breakdown. I was seen in the hospital for each one, first time I just left without permission lol, after I got a little sleep on the pill they gave me, the second time I was hospitalized for a few days then got sent home, with "one-time not specified psychotic episode".

The psychosis stuff did not repeat since then because I figured out the trigger for it (it was me trying to get too close to an unresponsive partner in a relationship). So I never did that sort of thing again. But the episodes themselves did continue.

This year I also got, on top of all that, some sort of general emotional dysregulation. Meaning that it can sometimes be triggered for a short time outside the longer episodes or inside the episodes as well of course. I've got that somewhat under control too by now.

It's like, the intensity of emotions are not regulated right, I'm not being myself at least, at my base line I prefer to not feel much or strongly by default. It is positive and negative emotionality alike. Depressive ones included. But also over the top positive too. It's all been really bad and has had a compulsive flavour to it which made it even worse.

It looks like I gained some - probably temporary - control over this and the episodes themselves recently, in the last month or so; simply by recognizing my mindsets and recognizing how it's just leading to a dead end if I let myself overcome by too much thinking and too much emotionality. I mean I get nowhere with that so why allow this?

So I'm really vigilant on my sleep schedule now because if I don't sleep enough hours at a night then next day I sometimes feel already a bit susceptible to a new episode start. I have to be careful with that.

I am hoping it does not come back mainly because I do not want it to mess with my sports training - that I've had problems with in the last half year for some reason, depression??? - or other tasks in my daily life. I've been unable to work in these last 4 years, too. Somehow have not had the energy to be actually productive anymore.

My baseline since age 18 is some low-ish energy baseline that sounds somewhat like atypical depression or schizoid PD. Because it's pretty unemotional too. Not actually negative feelings, just low-ish energy. Though I do like and prefer to have a project with a long term goal to focus on - work or sports, etc, anything I can also analyse while doing it -, not much energy beyond that. Unlike before age 18.

Also willingly isolated myself from people since age 18 because I started having some incredibly energy drain around them and felt too disconnected from people overall and lost interest in them. I hardly visited university classes either, only as much as they required me to. Even with work, I only did remote work, not in a workplace around people. I'm 32 now.

That isolation was kinda like schizoid PD. I no longer have the energy drain if around people, I suppose the rest from people helped. I may be a bit anxious sometimes with some people but not crazily drained like that. I also no longer truly want to be isolated but, as a result, instead I'm having these episodes or at least still susceptible to them. So it's no good. It was much simpler when isolation was my default.

The desire for isolation did not go away on its own though, it only changed 4 years ago when I ran into some guy who I tried to have a relationship with. That relationship lasted for a month but I never fell in love or anything, just the initial contact made me feel like I was connected.. for a short time or something. I never had that experience before I think? Not even before I was 18 and my normal default self. Then I just changed into this crazy person afterwards lol. As above.

I think that's all