Hello, my name is Claire and I'm 18 years old.

I went to see a psychologist last week because I've been suffering from mood swings (and have taken antidepressants a while back), and we talked about the things I have been struggling with for these past few years. I go up, and I go down. She brought up bipolar disorder. I had been thinking about that as well, but wasn’t sure that my ups was severe enough to be called hypomania. It’ll take another month before I see her again (and she can say more about a possible diagnosis), but I was wondering if you guys can shed some light on my symptoms.

Personally, I’m pretty sure my depression is severe enough for the diagnosis (it covers almost all major depression episode symptoms), but my ups don’t really hit all symptoms. Most of the time, when I am feeling really good, it’s because of an obsession. I become totally absorbed with it, because of that I also need less sleep (but not so severe that we’re talking only 3 to 4 hours a night). I’ve always had obsessions. When I was younger, it used to be a tv show or celebrity most of the time. These past few years, my obsessions have grown stronger.
Every so often, I come up with ‘the greatest idea ever’ and the ‘best way to live your life’ and drop it after a few months, weeks or sometimes even days!. Doesn’t matter if it’s writing a screenplay, writing a novel, songwriting, becoming a minimalist, learning to play the piano / guitar, diving deep into cryptocurrency (and spending all my savings on it), learning everything I can about homicide / police-work, becoming obsessed with photography (and buying an 800$ camera on impulse), being sure that I’m going to run a marathon the upcoming year, wanting to do two majors at once, or study criminology in England, or not wanting to study at all because it’s ‘not necessary’, I’m going to start my own business anyway, cutting out sugar completely because I’m a ‘healthy person’, never eating fast food again, waking up at 6 am every single morning for the rest of my life, being sure blogging is my calling or wanting to work in a hotel / restaurant because that is ‘the greatest job ever’. Just to name a few.
It’s like I can never fully commit to something, because as soon as I start making some progress with my current obsession, I already move on to the next or fall into a black hole. Being so obsessed with something and being sure this is the thing I was ‘born to do’ or that it is ‘going to change everything’ feels great, as long as it lasts. When I drop something again, I feel like a failure and don’t really see any meaning in life. It becomes dull, and like I said, I probably fall into a depression episode again.
These ups don’t really interfere with my functioning (my depression episodes really do, though). I can still be disciplined enough to do my homework (although my mind will probably be on my obsession most of the time). I talk faster, but not so fast I become incomprehensible.
I am just really frustrated because I know something is up, I’ve been experiencing these ups and downs for three years now, but they seem to get worse.


Thank you for reading, what do you guys think? Does this look like bipolar or something close, or is it too ‘mild’? Do you get more obsessive when you’re hypomanic?