Hi Giddykitty

I think it can be very helpful to get a diagnosis in order to get targeted treatment from providers and gain insight into thought processes and behavior. On the other hand, your particular search for answers does sound a bit compulsive. It's very important, I think, to keep a mood journal, which I think you are, but as someone else said, not every change in mood is a 'bipolar' change in mood. To me, your changing moods, from what you have described, sound closely linked to whatever is going on in your life at the time, as well as sleep patterns and fasting patterns, in other words, 'situational,' as you have mentioned.

If these moods are bothering you, Christina has given you some great coping method suggestions, and it sounds like you already have quite a bit in your toolkit. So I would go ahead with those first and foremost.

Second, because diagnosis is so important for you, as it is for many if not most of us, I think it's important you find a therapist and also a psychiatrist, who is the only provider who can diagnose you (though, of course, therapists usually know us a lot better, so I think that's kind of bunk). With a diagnosis (which, hopefully, would take a good long time, it should never, in my opinion, be done in one session, if not more), or lack of diagnosis (re situational moods), then maybe you can better move forward.

A last thing to maybe keep in mind, is that fluctuations in mood throughout a given day, or week, can be perfectly normal; everyone has them, whether they have Bipolar Disorder or not. However, if these fluctuations are really bothering you, if they're interfering with what you want to do in life, and especially if they're negatively affecting your relationships, then another diagnosis you could look into is Borderline Personality Disorder. BPD is often associated with sharp changes in mood throughout a given day, especially due to interpersonal factors (though you haven't described these). Though it's also important to keep in mind that you would also have to meet many criteria, such as fear of abandonment, so mood fluctuations would only be one of many indicators.

Please be kind to yourself and, yes, as others have said, enjoy the good times you are having!!