</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
My main question to your post, have you seen a psychiatrist?
Quizzes and literature, cannot give you a diagnose, maybe ideas, but not an exact DX, a person can have several disorders or variations, self-diagnosing is not the way to go, make an appt. with a psychiatrist ( a local hospital or your general practitioner can refer you to one) let the pdoc evaluate you, if necessary he will DX you, also if needed, he or she can prescribe proper meds to help your disorder(s).
He or she can also refer you to someone for talk therapy in adjunct to his or her medication treatment plan.
I wish you lots of luck with this.
Please take care,

DE

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

I have seen a psychologist, not a psychiatrist. (I think I have that right, I can never remember for sure which is which. The one that can't prescribe meds, anyway.) $100 a session is way out of my league, whereas a psychologist is available free of charge thanks to the Canadian heath care system. Unfortunately, when I did, I was not in the right place for it to be effective. There's a long, drawn-out explanation for this but it's of little importance right now.

Given that people keep responding to my original post with the statement that self-diagnosis is a bad idea, I guess I need to reiterate: I have been receiving treatment in the form of anti-depressants for major depression for a long time. This is not new to me. But the periods during which I am not feeling depressed are characterized by feelings of unconquerable confidence or irrational irritability, bursts of creative energy, extremely poor decision making - particularly along the lines of jumping into relationships with the first woman to show interest. Recently, within a 3-month period I went from an "A" credit rating to the point where the only thing stopping me from declaring bankruptcy is that I cannot afford to begin the proceedings. Um, that sounds like a manic episode to me.

Please understand that I am not discounting what you are saying, but my assessment of the situation is not based solely upon what I have read here, or the quizzes. Further, I agree completely that seeing a professional is the way to go and I fully intend (although you know what they say about good intentions,) to approach any sort of therapy with an open mind with a view toward describing the situation and letting the pro make the dx. However, I admit to being a little surprised at the lack of credit I am getting for having a brain of my own. Especially since I have repeatedly stated that my question was not related to whether or not I am bipolar. That is to be confirmed, or not, by whomever I am referred to. I was merely hoping that other, more knowledgeable visitors to this forum, would be able to offer anecdotal or other information as to the interaction of various disorders and their relationships to each other in a general way. I admit that I stated I knew I was bipolar. Perhaps I shouldn't have said that, but it was intended to set aside that question and not distract from the actual question I was asking. It appears to have had the opposite effect, much to my dismay.

I mean no offense. But I am nevertheless very surprised. Perhaps I wasn't clear in my original post, and if so, I apologize if I sound pompous or arrogant about my knowledge or lack thereof in this situation.