My mental issues, unfortunately are apparent to me. And being very intelligent, or just in-tune with my mind and body - I can feel my moods swing. They aren't huge but I recognize when they are changing and boy you don't want to be around me when I am going 'down'. The only reason I don't think that I'm bi-polar is that I don't have the mania part. I went to the 'cooky bin' and got a copy of my file. Read it. Yeah, probably something is a miss. Mostly a lot of drug use (growing up around it) and then using once I hit like 18 or so. Thank God (or someone) the drugs never got real 'hard' mostly just pot. I guess the massive quantities of valium I've done over the years have probably not done much good either. I just get addicted all over again, and again, and again. Just have an addictive personality. I come from a well educated family, I guess middle-class?
Haha yeh we are very much the same in terms of social upbringing. I mean the middle-class is the LARGEST class so thats always where your largest account of mental disorders will come from.
But let me tell you something briefly. When I went to the "psychward"... "cookybin" w/e you wanna call it, I got diagnosed with 3 different disorders and this was during the time I was also detoxing off opiates.
I got into a literal fight (by literal I mean screaming at the top of my lungs "you are a fucking idiot" not swinging or anything lol) with my doctor and she threatened to transfer me involuntarily to a longer term clinic. Where the minimum stay was like 8 months or something.
She had diagnosed me with: major depressive disorder, panic disorder, and PTSD.
The only one I feel I truely had was panic disorder, the major depressive diagnoses was because I was coming off opiates, and the PTSD was me more or less just having nightmares from my youth.
The nightmares NEVER happened before the clinic, but they insisted on telling me I had PTSD. And they also insisted that I took very specific medications.
Long story short, I got out. Months passed by where I was actually clean for once in my life, and EVERYTHING went away. Even the panic disorder which I had been suffering from for 8 years. The panic attacks wound up being quelled 100% by beta blockers and Lexapro. I got off the lex a year later, stayed on the blockers, and never got another panic attack again.
In your case, its possible that you are NOT bipolar like you say, but "unipolar", which is similar (not similar it IS the same) to the depressive disorder I was diagnosed with.
But I want you to understand drugs alone can trigger that. Those really low emotional times, where everything is black and you go into your "zone", I'd be curious to know if you become more aggressive or less aggressive.
If you are becoming more aggressive the chances are the drugs are causing it. If you take all you anger and direct it inside during those times (true depression) than behavoir is more associated with actual depressive disorder. I know a lot of times I wake up and things are black, I hate my fucking life for no reason, but I also get ANGRY. That anger in itself is a surival mechanism, telling you "I can't use these fuckin drugs anymore". You have a right to go into those states, as its your mind subconsciously trying to pull out out of an addiction (or something else) imo. Thats just my belief about mood swings in addiction.
I know a long time ago when I was in prison (like 9 years ago I'm 27 now) I had a genuine issue to be depressed about in my life. The ONE thing I noticed that was different about the depression I get now is this:
It was ALWAYS consistent. I mean there were NO "inbetween days" like there are on drugs. On drugs I can have a few good days than go back into that angry/depressed state. Off drugs when I had legitimate things to be depressed about, the depression was totally different. It was more natural than artificial like now.
I ALWAYS directed the anger in. And thats what made me depressed. It was unshakable, and even if I took a drug at that time Id just get more depressed.
Look at that aspect of your life. Depression always usually starts with anger. If you are directing that anger outwards during "depression", its not classical depression. Its more or less a depressed state induced by the drugs.
If you hold it in, and wake up like that everyday of your life, than thats what true unipolar can often be like. Of course it has inbetween times like any disorder, but it becomes very consistent and much more of a trap. With the depression from the drugs, I always know in a matter of days when I can up whatever dose of what I'm taking and get some money, that I'm most likely gonna be happy those days.
When I'm out of money, and have to start lowering dosages, than I get depressed as all hell. But I also get angry too. Its important to distinguish whether these tendencies are being cause the drugs, or by yourself.
One thing I can tell you for sure for sure, is if you don't have that mania like you said you simply aren't bipolar. Theres no way in hell. Half of bipolars entire diagnosis lies on the mania part, the other half on the depressive symptoms. My buddy was bipolar and killed himself, its was VERY obvious watching his behavoir over the course of months, how severe his disorder was.
He'd sleep in bed for 4 weeks straight, not shave, not eat, not do much of anything. Than by week 5 he was getting hair cuts, going on job interviews, laughing hysterically, and was genuinely a fun person to be around (too fun at times). And by "too fun" I mean his mania would take him right out of social norms. Fun to him became ANYTHING that amused him, and he had no limits on how much "fun" he would have during those times. His bipolar was aggravated during the winter time. And by January of the year he was dead. I cried for a long time over that kid, because he had battled the disorder for sooo long, and I never thought he was the type to ever give up. But I don't have bipolar either and I can't tell you what was going through his head in those dark times.
There are people who say "I'm bipolar" just because they have mood swings. But mood swings are so much a part of natural life. When you see someone with legitimate bipolar disorder, you start to doubt about 90% of people who say "I'm bipolar". I understand there are grey areas, but so many people say they have the disorder just to get money from the government. Its sad but its always been like that since mental disorders became more prevalent in our society. There are actually many benefits to faking a mental disorder. And lots of people do it. Thats another reason mental disorders have some stigma attached to them. You can absolutely PROVE when someone has a heart problem, but if you are a good enough actor (not even that good lol), its rather easy to convince a shrink that you suffer from 10 different things, and then you become one of those "special needs" people... which in a lot of cases converts just into "needy" people. And it also makes it that much harder on people who legitimately suffer from these problems.
Anyway, not sure why this has turned into such a rant. Most of my beliefs on this stuff are just theories, like any other asshole. So take it with a grain of salt. But it sounds to me like you MAY have some depressive tendencies, although I wonder how much of that crap is caused by your coping skills. People who "cope" with things by getting high all the time will often get like you. And once the drugs are gone for 6 months - 1year, a lot of their "disorders" go out the window too. Just to give you something to think about I guess. If you ever get off drugs 100%, and a year later you are acting the same way, the chances are you were just using the drugs to cover up the disorder. Which is also more than common. But you never really know untill you're able to gather some clean time.
