Am I bipolar or not? Help diagnose me.

So I know I need to bring it up with the p-doc but you guys know me much better than he does. And I will bring it up with him first, I just want your opinion first.

I have gone through the exercise of revisiting my life story to separate situational symptoms from endogenous. I ended up with 95% situational symptoms. And even that, heavily colored by how ex described them. Say I had just a few periods when I became resentful and he called them manias. So I have disregarded all that.

What I am left with is the following:

-- Shopping and spending. Cannot deny that. The never used shelving from the Container Store is still sitting in my living room. So, definitely done that. And the accumulation of similar things. From the same Container Store, I once bought, on sale, half of their Christmas gift bag collection. Go figure why. I could not have possibly been invited to Christmas parties by so many people. But high quality, artistically done gift bags so I wanted a lot of them. Eventually freecycled them. And, rented a big house beyond the needs in 2005. So, grandiosity in consumption.

I do not do it anymore. I imagine that Lithium helps because as soon as I started taking it, I became a careful, frugal shopper and I no longer want to buy out half of the IKEA catalog. I went to IKEA yesterday, calmly bought plates and bowls and silverware, and left. Did not wander around. Was not attracted by stuff.

-- A couple endogenous hallucinations, a couple hallucinations induced by pot, and a couple hallucinations induced by Seroquel.

-- Sleep disorder that started several years ago. Need a little help for sleep. OTOH, ex sleeps on a mix of Baclofen, Elavil, and pot, and he considers himself just a psychopath with no organic illness. And lot of people in this country take Ambien and Lunesta without having ever seen a p-doc. But still, sleep issues and bipolar go hand-in-hand, and I do have sleep issues.

-- Two encounters with completely triggerless anxiety lasting a couple of weeks each. Went away by themselves. One in 2012 and the other in 2011.

-- Over the years, have acquired problems with self-care that are very typical of bipolar people.

-- On a few occasions, liked concurrent attention from multiple guys. Not having sex with everybody but just enjoying the attention. Was excited by it. Does it rise to the level of hypomanic hypersexuality?

And that is it. The rest - suicidality, the suicide attempt, despair, etc. - were 100% situational. The suicide attempt, in addition, was provoked. I never told you guys about it, but it happened after a conversation I had on the phone with ex. He was going to run in a hilly park but called me and started the usual conversation about how awful a person I was. The usual stuff. In the course of this conversation, I conceived of the idea of suicide (because I was such a worthless and dangerous person, right) and verbalized it to him, adding that I would first sell my mom's apartment to provide for him and the kids and then go away. He said: "Why wait? We will manage on our own." So, that is a little unusual. Not everybody who attempts suicide is first so strongly encouraged by their family members.

So, once again, organically, I have had: shopping, self-care issues, and sleep issues. And a couple of hallucinations. And four weeks of anxiety during my whole life. And that is it.

What is it? How is it called?

And, the hallucinations I call organic/endogenous happened while on Depakote. I did not look into the matter thoroughly, just did a quick search and see that there are results on google about Depakote causing hallucinations.

could be attempt to nurture yourself, self-soathe. You appear as fairly materialistic type... so it's natural in distress you'd ran to the mall...

There is a false dichotomy between "endogenous" and "situational" factors causing mental illness. Yes, MI (and especially bipolar) is biological. But psychological factors and life situations heavily influence mental illness.

Prior to my first depression when I was 12, my best friend abandoned me and I had surgery. I believe that these life experiences contributed to (and possibly even triggered) my illness. That doesn't make it any less biological.

Just because you can think of environmental triggers for most of your symptoms doesn't mean that they are purely "situational". There is an interaction between nature and nurture. Psychologists call it the "diathesis-stress" model; environmental stress and biological diathesis work together to shape behavior.

I can't answer your question as to whether or not you "really" are bipolar. I can tell you that if treatment for bipolar has helped make your life more tolerable, then you ought to continue it, regardless of how you identify.

No, I am not materialistic and do not have the usual accoutrements of materialism. E.g. have never had a TV in my adult life and do not understand why people do. Certainly would never tolerate a machine running commercials trying to sell something to me.

Plus, on many occasions it was not out of distress but just out of thin air. No trigger no nothing. As with anxiety - started completely unprovoked and ended for no apparent reason. Of course, I am glad it went away!

HB, I did not mean it offensive way. You just seem to like stuff. That is materialism, imho. Worry not, most western world is that way.

I am not going to tell you if you are "really" bipolar.... but you know what I think of assholes in your life and relations to your emotional well being.

I do have a response, and I will try my best to have it make sense, but you may have to bear with me.

If there is that much situational, that it can be confused with Bipolar Disorder then you will never know until the situation changes for you. Especially if the meds help. Are they helping with dealing with a situation, or are they helping deal with a mental illness? that is the question I guess. And to find the answer, all of the bad situations will need to cease so you can have some contrast.

I will say, situational problems are a huge trigger for me, and they affect my mental illness horribly. So I could see myself confusing situational problems and mental illness... it wouldn't be a large stretch for me at all.

but i do know that I have depression.
Can you say that for a fact too?

And I do know that I get that adrenaline rush feeling for days, days where it is soooooo easy not to see that I am hypo.
do you know that feeling?

if you answered yes to either question then you can be sure that there is a problem.

Now Hamster, I was hesitant to respond because I know how close you look at posts, So I am apologizing now for any inconsistancies that my response may have in it. I don't have the largest I.Q., but I hope that you can find something in my response that may help you on your journey of discovery.

Thank you! So no, depression to arise out of nowhere, no. Always tied to something. As opposed to those two bouts with anxiety arising out of nowhere. So I do understand what it feels when something arises out of nowhere. You were fine and now you feel anxiety. I had that happen to me.

So Prozac helped tremendously but the depression and suicidality were situational, in Venus' words, due to assholes wanting me to leave California and never see my children. It is a severe stress.

So probably I should try without Prozac now that I am through severe stress.

Shopping however arose out of nowhere so I probably should stick to Lithium.

On the other hand, Prozac gives no side effects... so I do not know.

Maybe to try and see what happens...

This is a good thing Hamster. I would give up walking to be symptom free like you are right now. this is a good thing! No matter what you find... I request respectfully that you remain on this site.

yes! most def cut back on the meds and see where that takes you! I am rootin for ya!

That is so sweet of you, Dan, this is unbelievable! I will never lose my friends!

I'll just throw this out there ..

Maybe you are , maybe your not.

Don't you think it would be wise to just keep taking your current meds until this divorce is final ? I would imagine you are going to have some pretty big stress while all that mess is sorted out.

Once the ink is dry fiddle with your meds all you want.

Good luck

Well, three meds, right:

Elavil for sleep - will probably need for life
Prozac - I guess you are right, why not help a little bit (it is the smallest dose of Prozac available) while the divorce is ongoing? Robert emailed today saying that I would need to be in court with him for the hearing. So, seeing ex, right? Stress right?

Yes stress

OK, no experimentation then now.

you have something to look forward to....
it's exciting to think about it! At least it is for me to think about, for you lol

What would you be dx.'d if not BP? Would excluding BP help in the divorce? Have you taken the time to look threw all the threads you've started here to see if there's a pattern? I think after the divorce you may want to withdraw and get re-evaluated. You'll always have these questions until you get evaluated med free and stress free. I don't have an answer but maybe more questions will bring you closer.

I will look through the threads, thanks for the idea.

For the divorce, I already have "no axis I dx" in the report. But it is attributed to the right medications.

The thing is, people who are correctly diagnosed and are on the right medications and people who do not have the disorder and were incorrectly diagnosed and are on medications look the same: they do not have symptoms. They look and act exactly the same.

But I know that, say, self-care is my own problem that is an organic problem and is not a reaction to any circumstances. In fact, thinking out loud about your suggestion to look through the threads I started, the FIRST one was about problems with self-care while not even being depressed. So, clearly I own this problem.

I think that the way life goes these days there is almost always a situation to attribute depression to. That said I've refused to increase meds when depressed cos you'd of had to be mad not to be depressed in those situations - and I thought that my level of depression was acceptable for the given situation.
I posted a similar thread a while back and got some great responses and decided to wait til a while after baby to change things are try and decrease meds. Similarly I think you are wise to wait till AD - after divorce to play with meds.

Talked to T yesterday.

-- Forgot to mention self care problems.

-- Mentioned shopping. She started smiling, admitted to shopping too much herself, and said that if shopping were a bp symptom, then half of the country would have bp .

Well, I will need to explain the EXTENT of buying useless stuff. Last weekend, I took a couple of items from IKEA, unopened, to Goodwill (American chain of stores where you can make donations of stuff), WITHOUT KNOWING WHAT THEY ARE FOR! I think I recall that they are some unusually shaped hooks to attach to walls for hanging, but I am not 100% sure. That IS a little extreme - to buy something and then not recall what it was meant for. Plus, I have all this excessive shelving from the Container Store in my living room now that I bought trying to organize us in a RENTAL house, and it is clear that even that huge, rundown house could not have possibly housed all the shelving. There were not enough closets to place shelving in. So, extreme. And when on this forum I read about women buying things in quantity and never using them, say, yarn, yarn, and more yarn, or artistic markers (by a med student, not an artist, mind you), I could really relate to that. So to me it seems like a very well defined symptom that I used to have that is clearly, squarely bp.

-- She smiled again when I mentioned that I enjoyed attention from multiple guys at, say, one party. So that is normal. No concerns.

-- I told her how in 2011 I had one evening when my mood was elevated and I was walking along the main drag in my city, crossing one little cross street after another, until I noticed that I was ALWAYS the first person in a crowd of people to start crossing the street when the light turned green. I decided that my speed of reaction must have become faster and that meant hypomania to me. Finally, when I looked at one street sign that I had seen a thousand times before, it seemed unusual and significant to me all of a sudden. I asked T if an evening like this rises to the level of hypomania. She said no.

-- She said that insomnia and needing medication for sleep can be a stand-alone disorder, not necessarily part of bp.

She did not have the DSM in the office but will bring it next week to go over the criteria.

It's good that you have a therapist who is willing to look at all sides of your experience, and not just insist that you are "sick" and that is the end of it.

one word comes to mind at this poin.... Wow.

Keep us updated on T's thoughts. I know alot of people who shop to self- sooth hammy, my friend is upset over her puny annual increase, so upset that she has a strong need for a pair of R3000.00 designer shoes she CANNOT afford, but WILL purchase on Saturday. And yes, quite a few buy useless stuff, pretty shoes that would never fit ( because it's pretty) , household gadgets that gather dust, tupperware, cupboards full of bowls and containers that serve no purpose, and so forth......These peeps would undoubtedly go overboard were they financially able to...

So while I don't question the reality of manic spending, I do wonder about the specific criteria....

All that you are mentioning resonates with me. Not the Tupperware brand itself, but just clear plastic containers from the Dollar store. In the early 2000, way before the dx. I had NO money - we lived on ex' SSDI and my little tutoring and interpreting income at the time (which was tiny, really, just a few hours a week), but I would go to the Dollar store and buy endless plastic containers. I still have not donated all of them.

I have never bought anything designer brand expensive, but the QUANTITY of purchases did amount to a lot. When Maria went to Kindergarten, the library at her public school held the usual annual book fair. I purchased books for $600! Won a prize for the biggest contribution from a parent, not that I tried to. Had plans to read the books with the children, give them as gifts to other children, etc. And it was only several months after I got a decent job and we still had thousands of dollars in debt from the years of living on almost no income.