@Winterbritt - Thank you for this! This actually makes a lot of sense in retrospect.

About a year ago, when I was going through my up-phase and losing weight etc, I signed up for a 'power of positive thinking' and a 'Spiritual meditation' course which helped a great deal.

As a beginner and with the daily practice of sitting in meditation every morning before starting my day, I was able to break the negative pattern and genuinely became more aware of myself, my emotions and the emotions of my peers, friends, and family.

I was able to consciously choose how I wish to react even in stressful difficult situations. With my mother's situation, I was able to detach myself and listen to her without letting her negativity and emotions affect me.

In this phase, it got so good that I enjoyed my work and there was a period a good 6 months where I started waking up at 4:30 to 5:00 AM even without an alarm clock as I would look forward to my meditation session going to sleep the previous night, start my day with meditation, and start picking up on work email from home from 6 AM onwards until 7:45, then drop my wife at work and little one at nursery, and get to work and would blitz through the day, make decisions, get work done without feeling drained, I would go to the gym for a workout in the evening and get back home and log on an continue to pick up on work email up until 11 pm. Then I would lie down, fall asleep immediately, not have any dreams / nightmares and wake up in the morning all energized looking forward to the new day.

And the same pattern would repeat, I would make good use of my weekends, work-out, take my family out, take time off and plan holidays and it was all good.

Also at work, I was working very well with my team (I have a team of 6 people reporting to me), I was genuinely engaging with them, took an interest in their career development and organized team outing to build more bonding and everything was going great.

After a point, I started engaging more in the spiritual meditation and learning more about their philosophy, belief system and teachings (they are a popular spiritual organization). As I learned more, I realized, there were many things which didn't sit well with me. Their fundamental philosophy, prophesy and then later as I got more involved I learned a certain way of life must be practiced, which was encouraged, which involved being vegan and being celibate.

These were recommended to achieve a higher connection and much more enhanced meditative state. I was willing to try these things out as I was totally enjoying the positive impact the meditation had already made to my life, so I became vegan, gave up alcohol completely for nearly over a year and the celibacy I was mixed up with, I knew I couldn't do it as it wouldn't be fair to my wife.

I kept on questioning, how much I should subscribe to, I was never forced and the choice was always left to me as to how much I wish to subscribe to.

So slowly I decided to come back and doing everything in moderation, as it was becoming difficult sitting down together for a family meal, as my family are non-vegetarian and it was confusing my little one as I was eating different to him and mummy and going out to social gatherings and work dinners and meeting my close friends (all of whom enjoy a drink) was becoming challenging.

And slowly I started that, and also fell off my daily meditation practice and then everything returned to its old ways. It is during this period where I am unable to place a finger on what the trigger was?

How could it all just switch over just like that after about nearly 8 months of such a good time?

Although, when I ask my wife, she felt I was living a life of a workaholic and being self-obsessed with my meditation, my work-outs, cooking my own food, and my work late into the night and I still wasn't prioritizing and doing all the things that were important to us as a family. (like financial investing or planning to buy a home and settling down in the country that we now live in, or planning on having a second baby as time is running out and my wife's body clock is ticking).

She felt waking up at 4.30 and starting work at 5:00 am and continuing that into late hours of the day was not normal and people at work were also noticing and asking what's happening? Some indirectly told me, that I really need a life outside work mate.

However, at work, I got recognized for all the hard work I was putting in, got an extra-mile award for getting results. I have also been promoted twice at work during my 4.5-year tenure and have had 2 awards and recognition, just from the work I put in despite all the stress and unhappiness I go through.

Even today, I think it's my past hard-work that is keeping me going and my boss recognizes that I am stressed and is probably noticing the slow down in things getting done, but doesn't ask me any questions.

Thinking about it now, it doesn't feel normal, but to me, I was totally enjoying every bit of it, and it was great, but was it normal or was it the right balance, probably no.

Prior to this instance, there was one phase in 2005 when I had just returned after a 2-month stint abroad, when I was hyper happy for a prolonged period, cracking jokes all the time, super confident in my daily interaction with people and everything I did and my wife (then girlfriend) describes to me as appearing over-confident and over-ambitious which wasn't realistic. After that, the work routine returned, probably boredom set-in and it was a super down trip.

But for these two really high-energy episodes where it all appears a bit hyper, the remaining years have been pretty much docile, small up / transforming periods and small period enjoying the achievement and then followed by a long downward journey.

So in conclusion, I do believe, there is a power to re-constructing my thought pattern with positve thoughts either through meditation or other means.

Do you have any recommendations or techniques to achieve this ?

However, I should also learn to draw a balance and not become a workaholic? where I am not respecting the needs and feelings of the immediate family (wife, child, mom) ?

So now in retrospect and having read some amount of online resources, I was wondering if I was bipolar? or if there was something underlying which is beyond just my thought control? Is there something dormant that triggers something from time to time?

I have no clue. Which is why I want to meet the doctor who can hopefully run some blood tests or scan my brain to find some patterns?

At the same time, I am NOT someone who take meds easily for a headache etc. I must say it's not very often I have a fever or a cold or the flu, I am a healthy person, it's mostly just fatigued with lack of sleep and too much screen time and tiredness, emotional tiredness I feel.

So, I am not convinced I would look forward to taking medicines to help me solve the problem, but I want to hear an opinion from a qualified professional.

Sorry again for a long post, but I do finally feel I am being listened to and talking to someone who understands.

Thank you.

ps: I must admit I have smoked Marijuana a few times and have tried ecstasy (on two occasions) and cocaine ( on countable three occasions) over this 12 year period when partying with the boys. I have even wondered if these have resulted in a lasting impact on my mental health. I don't know, my reading of online resources have both sides of the arguments, some say yes it is possible and others say no, it's not.

I don't know.