Hi ok so I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this but I dont know where else to go or what else to do!!
I'm 17 (todays my birthday!) and I've never seen any sort of psychologist/psychotherapist ever so I dont have any sort of formal diagnoses for anything. I do think that I've been dealing with depression from the time I was around 13/14 and I've dealt with self harm since then. I've asked my parents to let me see someone and they've (reluctantly) agreed to let me but have never made any efforts to set up appointments or even talk to me.
I've been noticing more bipolar-type symptoms since around last march/april but I can remember feeling similar things earlier in my life? The biggest things that I noticed last spring were the classic few day/week/month cycles of depression and hypomania-like states and every once in a while an episode that I think could be classified as mania based on general web research.
Recently, however, I've started to notice more rapid cycling and it's becoming more hard to maintain the few friendships that I do have and finish schoolwork/apply to colleges/keep up with my job.
I've also have/had bouts of extreme paranoia and I'm almost always irritable. Both of those things are issues I've dealt with almost my whole life.
I'm really not sure what to do and am just looking for some advice I guess? Is it time that I need to start looking for help?? I'm worried that I'm just being silly and making all of this up but I'm also worried about this getting worse if I don't seek any treatment on my own.
Thanks for reading all of this and sorry in advance if this isn't the right place to post this!