depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, personality disorder, schitzophrenia?

this is a really long story...so basically, this all started my sophomore year of high school. (this is the stupid pathetic part, just warning you) i had liked this guy for a year and a half, we were about to go out, and then i ruined it be going out with someone else who played me and dumped me after a week. and then the guy i had liked got a girlfriend, and after almost 2 years they are still together. that really made my sophomore year suck...it happened at the beginning of the year, and haunted me for a year and a half. i kind of withdrew from people, i developed trust issues, and i started supressing my feelings for him, and really, anything else that hurt. i got so used to it that it eventually became automatic, which i guess means it turned into repression :P for a couple months after it happened, i went home from school every day and cried. eventually i just forced myself to stop though, i told myself to be strong about it. it just kept going downhill from there...the trust issues and repression got worse, until i finally told myself one day in january of my junior year that i was done. i had started liking this other guy i had a crush on my freshman year, and i had a class with him and the other guy i had liked before. in fact i sat between them, which was torture. i had been under enormous stress and had some horrible anxiety going on, from the two guys and just school in general, along with issues with family and friends. i was done with both guys, the first one just because i decided it was time to stop feeling sorry for myself about ruining things with him, and the second one because he made me so incredibly jealous. he sat there and said the sweetest things to me, but then went and said them to every other girl too. hes the only guy ive ever gotten jealous with, and it drove me crazy. it took a month and a half, but i got over both of them. neither of them affect me anymore, i just included it because its part of the story :P so after that month and a half, i was on a total high for about another month and a half. my self confidence was sky high, i was always happy, nothing could stop me. but the depression slowly creeped back in during march of my junior year. i told my best friend that i thought i might be bipolar, and she pretty much told me it was all in my head. she didnt say that straight out, but she might as well have. i had been annoyed with her for a while, but that was the last straw. she always complains how when shes arguing with her family that they dont let her talk, and she can never get a word in. well, apparently its rubbing off, beause thats exactly what she always did to me. it got to the point where if she interrupted me, i would just say "whatever, i dont care" because i was so freaking tired of it. also, with how she never let me help her, she just acted like a total know it all. she didnt seem to care about my opinion, or me, and basically ended up making me feel like no one cared about me and that i was always wrong about everything. i slowly stopped talking to her, and it took her about a month to notice. for about 5 weeks in a row she would ask to hang out on the weekend, and i didnt want to, so i usually just said "oh i dont know, maybe..." and made plans with someone else. during that whole time when all that was hapening, me and this new guy started talking. i was horribly depressed during that whole thing with my best friend, because i believed that no one cared about me and that everything i said and did was wrong, but i was pretty good at hiding it. eventually, he forced me to talk about things bothering me, and i didnt even tell him everything, but the fact that he made me do it proved to me that he cared. from that day, he was my new best friend. so after those 5 weeks of my old best friend asking to hang out and me not doing it, me and the guy started dating. my old best friend thought that he was the reason i stopped talking to her, because he was usually the one i was with when i told her i couldnt hang out. she thought i was so caught up in having a boyfriend (hes my first real one) that i just left her behind. ahhh that just makes me laugh when i think about it XD the weekend after we started dating we were hanging out, and me and my old best friend ended up having an argument over texting, where i told her how she never lets me talk and made me feel like no one cared. she told me i should have come and talked to her about it. i guess shes right, but if i thought that she didnt care and would just tell me i was wrong, why would i do that? at that point i was terrified of being told i as wrong, especially by her, because i felt betrayed. so no, i was not going to go talk to her about it, i was gonna say "screw you" and go find someone who did care about me, and i did. thats why i chose my boyfriend over her all the time, because he had proven to he that he cared, unlike her.

so thats kind of my story of whats happened to me over the last couple years...i was depressed my entire sophomore year, basically from october '10 to around august '11. then i was okay until about october '11, and i was depressed until january '12. then it went away until march, and since march its been off and on, sometimes for weeks, sometimes in a matter of hours. all that has made me think i might be mildly bipolar, because the depression does get horrible, but the mania is never very bad, and doesnt last very long. im normally either depressed or just kinda whatever, not like super happy or whatever :P so since im usually either depressed just whatever, maybe its just depression. but ive also looked at anxiety and personality disorders, and honestly, my emotions change so much that ive never been able to nail down a solid idea of what i think i might have. speaking of which, ive kinda looked at emotional disorders, but thats a really wide category :P my dads grandpa and my moms dad both had schitzophrenia, my mom has postpartum depression, and my younger brother had ADHD. so yeah, i have kind of a huge family history :P

also, i got a concussion back in january, and since then, ive had problems with my thyriod. (leading me to believe i might have damaged my pituitary gland, which is in charge of your endocrine system, and your thyroid is in your endocrine system :P ) doctors havent been able to figure out what the problem is. ive had 2 blood tests which have both been normal and an ultrasound, which was also normal. but the gland was still enlarged, so much so that it hurt to swallow and breathing was kinda hard. the doctor gave me medicine for it, which gave me more of the hormones your thyriod produces, which made the swelling go wayyy down. but the thyroid being enlarged is a symptom of already having too much of the hormones, and yet giving me more of them helped. im going to see an endocrinologist at the end of this week to see if they can figure anything out. the reason i included this is because the thyroid plays a major roll in your emotions. since this happened my depression, or bipolar-ness, or whatever has gotten way worse. its better now that im out of school for the summer, because schoolwork stressed me out SOOO much. honestly, im terrified for next year, i think im gonna crash and burn. i honestly dont think ill be able to make it through the whole year without having a mental breakdown, and im terrified. if you want anymore information or details just say so, ill definitely tell you, because ive spent months trying to figure out whats wrong with me, and i cant.

Some people experiences "up" episodes where they feel unusually happy, energetic, agitated, etc but not to the degree where they are manic. These episodes are called hypomanic episodes. Hypomania has symptoms much in common to mania, but to a milder degree. Bipolar I subtypes experience both depression and mania, whereas people with Bipolar II experience depression and hypomania.

It's also possible to have depression that cycles. Some people believe that cycling depression could represent a "Bipolar Spectrum" condition where their "highs" are represented by periods of normalcy. The bipolar spectrum may also include depression cycling with anxiety. My psychiatrist has suggested to me before that my fluctuating states of depression and anxiety could be a manifestation of bipolar where my anxiety represents the "highs."

I don't even know why I'm wasting your time writing about this when you can check out this website: http://www.psycheducation.org/depres...diagnosis.html
Read this! This is a fantastic website. Even if you're not on the bipolar spectrum, you should find helpful information here.

Also, hypothyroidism is often tied with depression, and hyperthyroidism with anxiety. There's the chance your thyroid could very well be influencing how you feel!

I hope this helps.
But please don't self-diagnose or allow someone online to suggest a diagnosis for you! I am just providing you with information. It's important that you visit a physician, therapist, or psychiatrist to really get an idea of what your experience is.