system
Feeling of bipolar disorder, frequent mood swings, suicidal feelings, feel low about looks. Normal?
human
Hello. My name is Angela and I m 16 years old. I think I might have bipolar disorder ... but don t know if I m just making myself think I have the disorder but I actually don t. So, I ve been through a really though life. I ve never met my father, he lives in USA and he replies rarely to my messages on Facebook, my stepfather cheats on my mother and live us and my siblings without money, my grandma died in January and I was really close to her and I left Italy and relocated in UK only five months ago and I miss my friends , and here I don t feel accepted . My mood swings very easily...it can change like three times in a day or more. I can wake up happy, then I don t know how some bad thoughts come in my mind (for example, I imagine someone that I care about dies) and I m depressed and want to cry for hours. Then, everything came back as before, and I m normal. Or it can happen that I wake up happy, then I get to college and I start thinking that I m not good enough, that the others will always be better than me. And I stop talking for all day until I come back home and I m normal again. Then some days I can be very active and like jump around the house, sing, laugh. The thing that worries me the most is that I see things that are not real. My biggest dream is to become a singer and every night I pretend to be on a stage with my band and sing to an audience. That s not the big problem, my mom said she did that too when she was little, everybody does. But the problem is that those people, those places ... become real. I can see clearly those people and spaces, I can interact with those people, touch them, talk to them... I can even held long conversations. I remember the first time I saw a person that wasn t real ... I was 12 years old. It was a famous person, and idol of mine (even now this happens) and this person was watching everything I was doing... but it wasn t creepy. He was just there, standing by my door. And since then everywhere I go I feel that someone is watching me. That year I even started thinking about suicide . I thought about it two or three times. I ve self-harmed but I never went too far. I was just pulling my hair, biting my arm, scratching my wrists and veins with a scissor but I never bleed . Only scratches.. but I had the thoughts about ending my life. Now I don t think about killing my self, but sometimes I feel so disgusting, so fat, so ugly, so stupid, so not good enough that I hurt myself. Last time I scratched my wrist too much and I also burned the skin on my arm because I did it too strong. I m also suffering insomnia from three weeks apart. I can t go to bed before 5 am and I m super active in those moments, I never feel tired. Then I go to sleep and I sleep only two hours. And when I wake up I m super energetic, like someone that slept eight hours or longer. And this alternates to days when I sleep too much. I ve also lost interest in thing that I ve been doing for years. Okay, my passion was always singing .. but at 11 I started playing the clarinet and piano. I ve been studying it since last year in Italy. Then I move to UK and I started college. The first two months were brilliant. I got all Distinctions and Merits and I loved going to school. But then I don t know why I just started hating it ... my passion for singing became even stronger and now I don t even practice the clarinet anymore and I do a lot of absences. In three weeks (I go to school three days a week) I ve been going to school only three or four times because I didn t want to go because I don t like it anymore. I don t want to do it anymore. I want to sing. And play the piano. I think that in clarinet I suck even if everybody says the opposite. But I don t enjoy it anymore. I don t know if this is...maybe a normal thing for a teenager? Thanks in advance for your reply and sorry for any mistake I made, English is not my first language! Angela
gpt
Dear Angela, Firstly I would like to appreciate your efforts in writing and describing your problems in such details. One thing that is clear from your write up is that you are surely having a problem which needs psychological help. Its too early and foolish to make a diagnosis with this much of information and moreover, more vital information will be available when some psychiatrist will interview you about your problems. You certainly have some problems with your cognition (thoughts) and you need to be put up into a Cognitive Behavioural Therapy by an experienced psychiatrist/ psychologist. Personality disorder also appear to co-exist. Harming your self is of the biggest crimes, and you should always seek help whenever you get an urge to do any act of that sort. Please visit a psychiatrist who will interview you and start you on some sort of psychotherapy sessions. I hope I answered your concerns.