Introduction; Hello Everyone

Good day everyone on the forum, I pray that all bodes well with you guys. I just thought I would write a little introduction here since I am new to the Bipolar forum, having been recently been diagnosed Bipolar Type I. I was originally diagnosed MDD w/ psychotic features and OCD, but recent events which I will explain below (I just realized I never actually told anyone what fully happened to me, atleast on the PC forums) shed light to the fact that I actually have BP Type I.

Anyways, it all started back when I was a child, I was abused and bullied alot at school, people would pick on me just because I did better academically than them and they saw me as a weak target to prey on because I was always socially awkward when I was younger, never had many friends, always kept to myself, so on. Anyways, I got over it, but recently I have been experiencing alot of anger regarding what happened to me, and having gone manic recently I have been experiencing alot of agitation about it, like how could the staff just ignore my repeated complaints and reports and never do anything about it, it was just like they were accomplices to the whole thing. Anyways, it is what it is I guess, I guess going manic recently brought back alot of emotions, I tend to get angered easily while manic.

Anyways, what really started all of this in me was the passing of my grandfather. My father was never really in my life, and my grandfather was the only person who was a father figure in my life. I lost him to cancer when I was about 10 or 11 or so (it has been a while), and after that I sunk into a deep depression. Nothing serious I guess you could say (like suicidal thoughts and intentions) started happening until my teenage years. About that same time I started abusing drugs (alcohol and tobacco, nothing illegal, funniest thing is I still smoke, even after my grandfather died from cancer) and was being abused on my job specifically then. Like my coworkers were not nice at all, they would laugh at every mistake I would make, even got physically abusive with me before. That only worsened my substance abuse issues, needless to say. Anyways, in Grade 10 I switched schools to one more focused on academics, and that helped me out, I managed to get my alcohol consumption under control (I used to drink Jack Daniels everyday, thankfully tobacco was not really a problem for me, in terms of abuse) and I felt a renewed purpose of life. Anyways, eventually on my old job I got into a physical alteration with my coworkers and I left, that was what really started triggering my mood to start swinging crazy. Oddly enough, it actually improved my mood, as I was free from that abuse and torture, I started a little business for myself and I was doing well. Eventually however, that good feeling started to get extreme, I started doing extremely well in school, recognizing my full potential, and I started getting hung up on leaving my island as there were no real educational or extra-curricular opportunities for me (I lived on one of the Family Islands in the Bahamas, and the education is below sub-par, like no AP's, no extra-curriculars, nothing) and I started becoming obsessed with pushing myself academically. I became obsessed with going to Harvard especially as it was always my dream to go there, I started intensive studying for AP's like I would stay up all night and get only a few hours of sleep if any without any solid rational plan for having a school let me sit them. It was like everything was going so fast then like I couldn't control it, like my mind was going so quick I felt unstoppable like nothing could slow me down. Anyways, long story short, when I told my pdoc this he said I had a manic episode.

Now I find mania is one of the best feelings in the world, atleast euphoric mania is, but in reality the higher you go, the harder you crash. To be a little shorter, I know I write long lol, it never materialized for me to take my AP's so I had nothing to help my application for Harvard, besides that I got denied admission from a top boarding school in the USA, and I started being stressed at home as my erratic actions started alienating my family, and besides that there was a lot of internal strife going on in my home. Basically I entered a depressive episode. It got to the point where I started going psychotic, like my thoughts weren't mine, the devil was putting them there, I had absolutely no control over my mind. Anyways, when the voices started it got bad, I couldn't take them anymore (they were real negative, like they would tell me to kill other people because I was superior, and they would tell me to kill myself because I was worthless, it was like a flashback to all the bullying and workplace abuse I suffered) and got help from my GP. He diagnosed me a paranoid/disorganized schizophrenic and put me on Seroquel. The Seroquel helped some, mainly because it made me sleep, and trust me I needed sleep, but it wasn't helping much. Anyways, he referred me to a psychiatrist, so I went saw my pdoc and whatnot he diagnosed me MDD w/ psychotic features and OCD, he just focused primarily on how I was feeling then, well obviously I was in the middle of a depressive episode so I was depressed, and he never knew much about my past. Anyways, he put me on the Prozac and Zyprexa combo, and it worked miracles for me, I mean I still had some issues with the mood swings, but it was like I had more control. About this time I started having acute episodes of mixed states (they're the worst thing to ever go through) so my pdoc gave me Rivotril (Klonopin) for PRN usage, it was also about that time he started coming to the conclusion that I may actually have bipolar since my thought would still race and I would get agitated on occasions.

Anyways, I graduated high school moved off the island, and I improved tremendously. Everything was going pretty good for me, until I stopped taking my Zyprexa, then everything went to **** lol. I went manic again, a few weeks back and it lasted about two weeks before someone on my new job at a leading legal firm called me in and started questioning my erratic behaviour, I gave generic answers, because there was someone else in the room at the same time, but I sent an email explaining what was happening to me, you know about not taking my meds and all of that because I have quite a bit of insight into when I go manic or depressed and can somehow "feel" an episode coming on. Anyways, I never got a response, (and he knew about my medical history because in my interview they had a copy of my medical reports) and I started assuming the worst, like I must be weird or maybe I deserve all thats happened to me and I started becoming paranoid that they would fire me. Anyways, at that point my mania shifted into depression, and everything went down the tube, went suicidal again, was a miracle I wasn't hospitalized (I couldn't because I knew I would lose my job and besides that I couldn't afford it anyways, but I am good at hiding the more serious symptoms though so I may not have been admitted anyways). Anyways, I just recently saw my pdoc, he rediagnosed me BP I and adjusted my meds so that I could take them reasonably again, because the side effects started hampering me a bit.

So here I am, if you made it this far thank you for reading, if you skipped 99% of my essay, I do not blame you lol. I just thought I would put this on the record and introduce myself, just incase I do end this suffering one day, maybe someone would know my story, besides my pdoc. I will probably hang around this forum every now and again, I used to hang around the Depression and S&P forum back when I was really active so I will probably stay here now.

Thank you.

Welcome to PC. I did make it thru your essay, lol. Glad you were finally given the proper diagnosis and can find the right treatment. Hope to see you around on here, there is a lot of great people and support for times like this.

Welcome to our little corner.

Welcome Bigmike-hope you find lots of support here. btw that picture is just too funny

Welcome

Thank you for the welcomes everyone.

@Turtlesoup That's a Bahamian crab, real fun to catch them, I love going crabbing, just I'm always scared that I am going to get poison wood on me lol.