Am I bipolar or not? Help diagnose me.

And yes, I have a bread machine which I only used several times years ago when we lived together, I had a yogurt maker from Goodwill (it cost just a few dollars, but the whole idea of making yogurt at home when grocery stores are full of good tasting yogurt!), I used to have an ice-cream maker, also from Goodwill, also used a few times only, I used to have a collection of crock-pots (slow cookers) - one round, one oval, one with detachable base -- the only gadget I have never had is a big stand-alone mixer because I have never done industrial strength baking.

So, yes.

I will also ask the p-doc to do the same.

I also imagine that when the first p-doc in 2006 heard from me that my mother had bp, he became preprogrammed.

Yes, BlackPup, I remember your thread well. And I will wait.

I would go to the Dollar store and buy endless plastic containers. I still have not donated all of them. You may want to participate in operation Christmas child next year.

I don't think I am or have bipolar disorder but I do know medication has helped me be functional.

Also my doctor made a good point. Practically everyone takes meds or supplements now days. Nothing wrong with taking something if it helps.

Its hard to know because bipolar is a subjective and perspective disorder. There isn't a test you could really do to 1000000% beyond a doubt tell you that you have a disorder.

you like to cook, so this is kinda natural, even if it seems excesive. And you are not the only one who purchases stuff. If anybody with bread machine collecting dust would be diagnosed bipolar then 90% of my country is so (and yes, they have yogurth makers too... and they will buy the next trendy kitchen tool... most people).

I said this before, I think majority people lives excesivelly. I knew people who were in debt and yet travelled to Mexico and had lasic and simmilar shallow ****... and no DX. No problems otherwise. All educated people. Maybe it IS partly cultural.

I believe you're onto something here, I come from a people who do their damndest to live beyond their means. They will buy their kids Nikes and worry about how they'll feed themselves later... I don't fit in with this culture, never understood the mindset

Maybe. I talked to my childhood gf who now lives in Chicago. Moved to Chicago from Moscow in her early 20s. We have known each other since age 4. She has a big house, a CPA husband who earns a good living, three kids - most of the accoutrements of American success. I will visit her at the end of May - I bought my plane tickets yesterday. And we talk every night now. And she knows the story from me. And she says that she shops too... she has the means to and she does.

She also reminded me that my father (who was her father's close friend many years ago) has an unusually high speed of reaction. And talks fast. That was towards explaining my episode with starting to cross the street first among a crowd of people when the light turned green.

And with the guys... Ex once when we already weren't living together sent me a YT video. In Russian. Very funny and smart. About a gal who goes to her corporate Christmas party, drinks wildly, sit on her male boss' lap, does other wild things, while her gf/colleague videotapes everything on her phone without the gal's knowledge and... posts to YT, without the gal's consent. 1 million visitors just for the month of January. The gal cannot handle the love of the masses and moves to Arctica where there is no YT. During this wild party it seemed to her that every guy in the room was in love with her.

Ex sent it to me saying that it is a perfect description of bp, complete with overabundant alcohol and thinking that every guy in the room is in love with you.

I told him that it had never happened to me. In fact, the only time this issue came up was when Lana, my gf, told me during a cozy non-alcoholic (minimum wine, that is, and nothing else) party in my apartment "Is every guy in love with you here?" There were probably five young men, our friends, and yes, eventually I would go on to have a r/s with one, a marriage with another, and just close friendships without intimate r/s with the rest. But possibly friendships without intimate r/s were sort of intentional - they could have gone a more intimate way if we did not resist it. So OK. But it was not my thought. It was her observation. And at that time it took me by surprise. I did not expect it.

So I told it to ex. He said "when somebody is manic, her mania can permeate the thinking of other people around her. In the end it is the same thing"

wtf?

And now I am looking through my life history and not seeing any place where I would have been under the impression that every guy in the room was in love with me. Ever. Several, but not all. I was always in touch with reality on that matter. Back in elementary school - went to first grade, the class was huge - more than 40 pupils, so more than 20 boys. 4 boys told me that they were in love with me. I liked that (although I did not reciprocate at that time to anybody). But I realized that the other 16+ boys were NOT in love with me. And it did not bother me. I was not like, grandiose and craving attention from every single boy or being under the illusion that every single boy was in love with me. I was perfectly satisfied and happy with the 4 I had.

The exact number has gone up or down throughout the times, but I have never thought that I was the center of attention of everybody in the room.

Your Ex is a moron. Good thing he can't practice here in the States, No idea how many people he would screw up.

You may/may not have bipolar disorder but your ex is pretty sadistic as is. Its good that you're evaluating and disproving what he has told you to reclaim your self esteem. I also think sensitivity is a huge marker in bipolar.

I find that my social anxiety still has control over me even when I'm hypo/manic, so I never feel like "everyone is in love with me".

Instead, I feel like everyone should be in love with me because I'm so amazing. lol

Bipolar disorder is such a heterogenous illness. No two people get manic or depressed in exactly the same way. You still may be bipolar; maybe your manias manifest themselves with the shopping sprees and other, subtler symptoms. How do you feel when your up? High, like you've consumed some heroin? Invincible? Unstoppable? In tune with the universe, more than satisfied with yourself and your life, on your own private mission to correct all the injustices in the world? Or do you just feel happy?

And another thing. He has a theory that large metropolitan areas, including SF-Bay Area, attract bp people. That the concentration of bp in the Bay Area is multiple times higher than that in the Dakotas, because bp gravitate to the Bay Area. And he would dx as bp (or mi in general) pretty much everyone he would come in contact with. His real estate agent liked to talk a lot and was of a high opinion of herself - immediately she was manic. He did not like Julia's English teacher in her new school and the teacher is distinguished or "best in the county" or some sort of high mark like that - "in the Dakotas or any other normal place she would have been locked up on a psych unit and nobody would have taken her seriously and here she gets to brainwash schoolchildren because this is how screwed up the Silicon Valley is". And on and on like that. This person is borderline to him. That person is narcissistic. And that is what my daughters still hear from him, I am sure.

I need to think more about it to give a thorough answer to this question. Also, I have never consumed heroin or any other hard drug, so I do not know how to compare.

I've never done heroin or any drug other than alcohol and caffeine either; my hypo/manias just bring me the rush I'd imagine heroin would if I did indulge.

I know it's a hard question. Take your time. And that is just how I feel when I'm hypo/manic. So even if you can't relate, you still may be bipolar.

Talked to the Marianne who is in Chicago. She has been into buying antique jewelry so much that at the stores they thought that she was a DEALER. Talk aboout shopping in quantity. And, consignment stores. She says that she cannot even retturn the things she buys at consignment stores when she realizes that she has no use for them.

Not bp, just a member of the general public.

Not a professional here, only expressing my humble opinion:

No one single action or even series of actions can warrant a person psych diagnosis. What can then? In my opinion it's presentation of the said action. For example may people shop excessively, but when I was manic I spent every single sent I had on me atm. I bought very nice things that I still use and like BUT I didn't need and couldn't afford them at that time.

Hypersexuality and need for attention are very common for women. It's not sick too enjoy it, but if this enjoyment brings suffering to others (example: with husband present and at HIS work party) it is not really OK to do. And if a person fails to recognize the results of her actions, something is probably wrong there. Especially if it's not her usual way.

SUI is a special topic for me, since it happened in my family due to an untreated mental illness. My view might be too harsh and not very academic, but it has proven true (for me) over years. I believe that if someone actually attempted sui there was a mental illness present, even if the circumstances of life were hard and there was significant stress. Even in German concentration camps majority of people fought for life to the last second, not because they particularly enjoyed it at the moment, but because healthy survival instinct is too strong and hard to kill in a human. But if it's broken, any stress, even relatively mild, could push a person over the edge. I think anyone who ever attempted should take preventative measures before stress strikes again.

Examples could be endless but not to make this post too long I will just summarize my idea. BP psych dx is only needed and useful if behavior is bringing suffering and is to a detriment of a person's life but he is unable to understand the consequences of his actions or is convinced that there will be non, even after it becomes apparent that there will be and grave ones.

If I doubt my sanity I usually ask myself:

1. Was my behavior prudent?
2. Did I fully realize the consequences?
3. Would those consequences be apparent for me now?
4. Was it like "me" to act that way?

If answers to the most of them are NO, I wasn't really in the driving seat.

Will see my p-doc in an hour. Will discuss this with him.

Tell us how it goes.

Yes pleas Hammy. Keep us in the loop

I had a good visit.

I told him about my doing fine without Geodon. He asked about various things that could have happened, such as mood swings, this, that, or difficulty sleeping. None of them did happen except for the difficulty with sleeping that I had when I visited Texas for the long weekend. But that just might be my being extra sensitive to the jet lag, right? I am sleeping fine now that I am back in California. He agreed that it is just the jet lag.

Then I said "Let us go back to the drawing board". Meaning, that I wanted to be re-evaluated.

He asked me if I ever need no sleep. I said no - there have been times when I could not get enough sleep but I felt very yucky afterwards. I never enjoyed surviving on little sleep.

He then asked whether there had been times of my feeling grandiose etc. for several days at a stretch. I said "no, I have been feeling particularly high only for a few hours at a time, but not for days".

I then asked him to listen to my telling him about suicidality and irrational behavior.

So in April 1998 when I was pregnant (almost due) with Maria and my son was 5, ex wanted to break up with me over something (the story will come later). OK, so I could have said "fine, I go back to school, and I will see you in family court to determine your involvement in Maria's life". Instead, I (1) wanted to commit suicide and (2) wanted to give up both children to him. Both (1) and (2) were short-lived impulses, but still.

(1) - I was driving on a highway in the left lane, going to a store to buy a bassinet for Maria. My son was in the back of the car. At some point I wanted to speed up and crash into the next car to remove myself from the situation, but thought about my son and Maria in my tummy and wanted to save their lives. It was basically very fleeting ideation.

(2) I met ex in Feb 1997. So from Feb 1997 to April 1998 he was telling me, repeatedly and consistently, that I was basically the worst parent on the face of the planet. So I had an idea - I would give birth to Maria and leave BOTH Maria and my son to ex. Myself, I would go to Moscow and work for the Moscow office of the best international law firm whose HQ were in NYC - I had an offer from them - earning a lot of money and not spending anything because I wanted to live with my mother and grandmother and not pay rent. The idea was to give all the money to him to cover his living expenses. He refused (later on he regretted refusing). I called my father in Montreal and told him: "I am psychotic and could you please persuade him to take the children." My father said: "If you cannot live with him, it is perfectly OK, why don't you take your son and fly to Montreal to give birth here and we will take care of everything." By the way, I used the word "psychotic" without understanding what it meant and without even EVER looking it up in any dictionary. Ex called me psychotic so I repeated the word like a parrot.

I did not go to Montreal. I stayed and delivered Maria and we continued to live together.

So rationally, now... I was raising my son mostly by myself until I met ex so I had experience being a single mother. Why did it seem so catastrophic to me when ex wanted to break up with me when I was 8 months pregnant? I could have raised two children alone, or could have found another man - it was not a big deal. Why? Why choose suicide or giving up my children when I could have just said to ex: BYE?

The p-doc said two things about all that.

The fleeting suicidal impulse on the highway is something that happens to many people.

The irrational behavior, believing what ex said without doubting or questioning anything, self-sacrifices are all not bipolar but the manifestation of my dependent personality traits. That was his assessment based on the story. I told him that the psychologist who tested me came up with the same dx: dependent personality traits. So this part - dependent personality - seems pretty consistent, because Anika here, the p-doc, and Rosalie, the PhD psychologist who tested me ALL say the same thing.

To sum up, he said: "I see nothing bipolar in you, but you are medicated, so that may be why."

He offered to continue the conversation and then potentially taper off the medications, while being careful about the risk of decompensation because I should be high functioning to keep the job.

Another appointment next month!

Wow! I'm glad your appointment went so well
Your pdoc does sound like a gem

He is totally cool and wonderful! I think this is his first job.

Also, he said that a PD (full blown) differs from just traits in how it affects your life. If it interferes seriosuly with your life, it is a disorder. If not, just personality traits. So I am afraid that I have a full blown dependent PD rather thaaan just traits that the neuropsych assessment showed.

Try not to stress it.