Am I Hearing Voices or Do I Just Want Attention?

I'm sure that I have a bipolar spectrum disorder - multiple health care professionals have attempted to diagnose me with it in the past, although since I wanted to join the military I refused to let them diagnose me officially.

About three weeks ago I started to feel disconnected from reality, and about 4 days ago I think I started hearing voices.

Memory has been a big issue for me, I can't remember things well so writing this post has been hard, I don't remember if I looked up psychotic symptoms of bipolar before or after I started suffering psychotic symptoms. I know I started feeling disconnected and forgetting things before I looked up symptoms but I'm not sure about the voices.

What I mean to ask is whether I could just think that I'm hearing voices because at some deep subconscious level I want to hear voices in order to receive attention or to think that I'm special.

I don't know if I'm hearing voices for real or if I subconsciously crave the attention that comes with hearing them. Also, I hear them after I think about hearing them, such as while I'm writing this post. If I don't think about hearing them then I don't usually. Also, if I’m afraid that they are going to tell me to do X then they'll tell me to do X. I’m just confused by everything and would greatly benefit from talking to someone who has gone through this or something similar.

I'm sure my writing here is jumbled and disorganized but that comes with the nature of this sort of thing.

How do I tell if I'm hearing voices for real or not?

The only way to know for sure is a diagnosis.. I'm sorry. Please do it as soon as you can..