[alicia1584]

I know I'm not a doctor nor is anyone else here but I thought I'd put this out there to see if anyone can relate. I've been feeling very not myself this past year especially and I've started to suspect/wonder based on researching that I may possibly be bipolar. It's hard to get any kind of handle on things or get help because I alternate from feeling awful and knowing I need help to feeling perfectly fine and the thought of getting help doesn't seem urgent at all. Or I convince myself that I blew the experiences out of proportion and I'm convincing myself of something that's not true.

I'll try to be brief in my description of what this past year has been like if I can manage.

For the past two and a half years I've been in a rut as I was formerly calling it before I started to wonder if it was more serious. From about 2011-2012 I became I guess depressed. I stopped working out and eating healthy and spent long periods of time in bed when I didn't have to be at work. I started to feel slightly more emotional to things when normally I'm not an emotional or sensitive person. I never really cry and I would have periods where I'd get teary eyed but I didn't think too much of it. I also started to notice my concentration has been terrible. I don't have patience for books anymore and I was forgetful. My vocabulary has gone to hell when it was always good and I started to feel dumb.

Now this past year from late 2012 to present has been a whole different animal. This past winter I was living in a constant state of just being plain pissed off at the world for no reason and when I went home I'd be sad and I'd lay in bed in the dark and just cry. I'd have times where I was okay but the bad moods were more prevalent. My friend at work told me that I just radiated anger off me. I didn't want to talk to anyone. Not even her and she's my best friend. If I did talk I would sometimes go on these little rants about something that was upsetting me and I could see on her face that I was being really intense. I chalked that up to the winter blues and once spring hit I was better for a while. Then I started having these "episodes" this past summer/fall where I was feeling emotionally unstable. I've had about 2-3 episodes that I can really track where I feel like I'm going crazy in my head. If something sets me off I'll go home and lay in bed and cry. This time the crying was different. It wasn't so much sadness as desperation I guess? My mind was racing with all these awful thoughts and it was not only emotionally painful but it physically hurt. I can't describe it how it hurt and it's nothing I've ever experienced. Like my body was filled with this awful negative energy that just hurt me and I felt like nothing will ever be okay. My mind won't shut off. Eventually I'll fall asleep and I always end up waking up a few hours later and I'm up from like 3am and I'm just all keyed up. The second I wake up my mind goes back to where it was when I fell asleep. I know that I should be tired but I'm not. I describe it as like my eyes feel wider or something. I'm soooo distracted that it's embarrassing and my friend who is also my coworker gets upset with me because she will literally tell me to focus and the second she starts talking my mind starts wandering to something complete unrelated. During this time my anxiety is through the roof. The points I describe when I'm laying in bed crying and in physical pain is kind of the climax but for days or more I feel on edge and anxious and just not steady. Like one wrong word or situation will send me back to where I was in my room and I worry something could make me just lose control. I always manage to control myself around other people and I've never blown up but I start to worry I will. Eventually these awful feelings just kinda creep away as quietly as they creep in and I logically know somethings not right but I feel fine so I do nothing. My last episode was in early September and it faded away at some point and for weeks I've been good. I stop thinking that I may be bipolar and my anxiety is not an issue. I can get a gauge of when these episodes start but I really can't tell you when they dissipate. I just kinda notice one day that I'm not feeling anxious and on edge.

Aside from these really marked episodes I feel like I have less extreme issues. I tend to go in cycles where I want to be around people and do things and go out and then others I just want to be alone and I just have no energy for anything. I'll get in moods where I want to do this or that and get my life in order and that that will fix everything but those periods never last and I'm back to just not caring about anything.

That's all for now I guess. I think I failed in keeping things brief but I like to be thorough. Thanks for listening.

[Blue_Bird]

It sounds like you have some distressful things occurring, I'd definitely recommend seeing a therapist and/or Psychiatrist and getting evaluated