New Here - Want to get this off my chest

I got carried away writing this post - I apologise, I started typing and then I couldn't stop. I had a lot to get off my chest

I found this site when google searching stuff about bipolar and decided that I may as well sign up and join the community.

I've been told that "there is strong evidence" (And apparently strong enough to treat me on meds associated) that I have Bipolar Type II (With rapid cycling) and Panic Disorder with intermittent agoraphobia (A daunting list). I'm 19 now and I've suffered with connected symptoms for a long time.

I had my first panic attack when I was about 7 and since then they have became more common. Originally they were associated only with selective events. My first was at having to go to the doctors, and following that at the dentists and opticians. But then when I turned 15/16 I started to have them in day to day life.

Depression has been a part of my life since little, if I think back, but really It hit home properly when I was about 15 alongside hypomanic type behaviour. And it would go in cycles. I went from days/weeks when I hated everything and couldn't bring myself to do anything to days when I got myself in a hypomanic state. Now sometimes in hypomania I'm just overly productive, like the top of all my classes and I get loads of work done. (Usually I'm an average student). On the other end of hypomania I act in socially unacceptable ways. When I was 16 I went hypomanic and ran round school waving my arms around casting harry potter spells on people (As you can imagine, doing this at that level of school is asking for trouble) - and videos of me doing it were put online on facebook and I got masses of abuse called all sorts of names like "werido" and "suck a fu**ing freak!!!" by everyone in my year. I also got into a weird state then, and took a photo of myself naked (Full frontal) and posted it on facebook as my display picture. Well, that didn't make my social situation any better. I remember my mum finding out, and confiscating my laptop. This made me real angry and I was going to leave home, but then I just went into depression and spend day after day crying and cutting myself (although I never did, and still don't cut myself deeply, just scratching with something sharp until blood.)

The next year I started a new school and everything kinda fell apart. My mood was up and down, and I found it very hard to make any friends. At this point I will let you know that my upbringing consisted of my grandmother and my mother. Both are emotionally distant, but in addition to this my mother was physically distant most of my life. So really it was only my grandmother. I remember going up to my mum when I was really young and her screaming at me to leave her alone, and that was an every day sort of occurrence. I also have a brother and sister (Both emotionally distant, didn't speak to them growing up) and a half brother 7 years older than me. Growing up my half brother physically abused me in the form of beatings and death threats. It was at this point that I first went to see a doctor about my mental health. I was put straight onto anti-anxiety oxazepam, and anti-depressant amitriptyline. A week later I was transferred to a specialist who took me off both of these and put me on prozac. Prozac didn't suit me well, it made me feel horrible and sick and I had massive panic attacks in the first two days that I simply put my foot down and said I couldn't take it, because it was worse than my bad mood. My specialist said this was okay, and that we'd try without medication for a while. On Christmas eve my grandmother who had raised me was diagnosed with terminal cancer. The next few months were weird. I decided to leave that school because of my grades from the first half being all fails, but I didn't go into some dip of depression... I felt alright. I had parties, went to parties but my mood wasn't overly up, it was level and I lived and active and healthy social life with my friends. By the time my specialist was going to put me on bipolar medication she said that because my mood had leveld off she'd hold off. After a couple of months of level mood she decided to let me stop seeing her, but told me to call her if I went down or up again.

In September I signed up for another school to start that year again - and it went a lot better than my first half at the previous school. I felt positive, and I was doing well (As opposed to at the last place where the 3 exams I did sit, I failed). It was going well, until Christmas break. I don't know why then, but all of the depression that I'd been waiting to hit me from the previous Christmas suddenly came at me all at once. Like I'd been depressed before, but this was different. I couldn't move. I didn't move from my bed for 3 weeks, not through choice, but because every time I tried to leave my bed I started having a panic attack and broke down crying and had to crawl back and cry myself back into a weird blend of being both asleep and awake. My mum just left me here but my grandmother (terminally ill) told me to get up, she didn't give me a choice, she told me I would go to school or she would call a doctor to come and make me go to school. I remember walking to school and just crying the whole way, tears rolling off my face. When I got to school I was so tired and so worn out and felt like I couldn't breathe so I didn't go to lesson, I just sat down in the common room. I did go to the lesson after that. I hadn't ate over the weeks I'd spent in bed, I'd dropped down to 100lb (I'm now at a healthy 150lb) Over the next couple of months I got better - and I got back into stuff, thankfully without harming my grades. I didn't contact my specialist throughout any of this.

I had a few ups and downs following this but nothing too big thankfully for most of my remaining year and a half. Over the next summer I went hypomanic, but thankfully it was well channelled into productive use. My only real snag came in the build up to my finals. This summer that has just left us. Back in the spring as they were approaching I went a bit down again, and started having considerable panic attacks. I remember one day we had to go into school for an awards evening towards the finals, and I phoned my friend who was going to drive me in and told him I didn't feel up to it. But he wouldn't let me fall back into a pattern of staying at home depressed so (while I was throwing up (which i do when my mood gets low and I lose my apatite but i still try to force myself to eat for energy and it doesn't go down well)) he talked me into agreeing to let him drive me in and sit with me the whole time. I agreed. I didn't speak the whole car journey in even though he was asking me stuff and telling me jokes to cheer me up and revving his car which he knows usually excites me, it had no effect. I remember I got to school and the whole of my year were lingering around in the hall and we went in and I just got hit by something and in front of everyone I just broke down crying, full on crying. And I couldn't stop myself. Everyone was looking, my phone was buzzing from about 100 of my concerned friends asking me if I was okay/if there was anything they could do, if I wanted them to come over. My friend who had brought me offered to take me home but I said no. I knew going home and spending the rest of the day alone in my room would make things worse. So I took my place next to my friend for the awards, and eventually stopped crying. I'm glad I stayed. My mood lifted as I got an award for outstanding achievement in media and the pupils choice award for most likely to be famous, most likely to be a millionaire and nicest person (more than any one person had ever received) and everyone was so nice and it put a smile on my face. I still wasn't great though so I went back home and slept for a long time. At this point I went to see my doctor again, as my specialist was a child pysch specialist and I was now over 18, my doctor didn't refer me this time. He just put me on Sertraline the SSRI and it did the same thing Prozac did to me, and I decided I didn't like SSRIs and I didn't really wanna try any more. I remember it made me wake up in the middle of the night in the most intense panic of my life, throwing up, crying on the floor from fear that I was dying... It was like a nightmare. He then decided to let me try over-the-phone CBT with a councillor but I hated the over-the-phone aspect and all CBT did was tell me stuff I already knew. It didn't help me so I stopped it.

Finals were over and I picked up, got away from school and the stress and got back into reading in my garden in the summer sun, something I always loved. And I go out drinking with my best friend now every Thursday and we have a great time, every week. Results came, and big thumbs up! I got great grades, not only above average but the third best in the school, and I got my place at one of the best universities here in the UK. One I never thought I would get in at. I was so amazed. I wondered how me, the failure of a human and academic who is all over the place had got into one of the most prestigious places in the country to study film.

My birthday hit me like a tonne of bricks. My mum decided to go away, and I was left home alone with my grandmother and my dad turned up and gave me a card and said hello to me. It annoyed me. He does this every year. I see him once a year, for 2min, when he hands me my birthday card. I was polite to him at the door but the second he'd gone I opened the card, took out the £5 not and then ripped up the card and threw it away without reading. I didn't need to read it anyway, same thing every year "happy birthday son, love dad" - Firstly: He doesn't love me, don't lie. Secondly: I'd prefer it if he didn't call me son, i'm not his son because he's not a father to me. My mates have fathers, they take them to football matches and for their first drink when they turn 18 and teach them to drive and tell them they love them and mean it. Anyway, that's a big tangent that I will avoid.

This time next week is my first day at university. I'm excited but my moods are up and down a bit, I think I need the routine of university to give me some structure again to allow me to level off. I've been going onto campus a few times to adjust to it to help minimise panic attacks when I have to go for my first seminars and lectures.

This week has been a bit of a depression, I've barely moved from my bed. But I have the ability to, it's not like that Christmas when I physically felt I couldn't. And I'm maintaining my healthy weight. I guess for now I will just "keep on swimming".

I told myself I'd keep my story to under 300 words, that clearly failed. I just wanted to say hello and introduce myself here. Thank you if you took the time to read this!

Hey Tony,

Welcome to the forum!

I read your story (it took two sittings) and it really sounds like you've been struggling for quite a while. It's also interesting that you haven't been given any medication for Bipolar Disorder. I imagine that must make things harder to cope with (hence the dramatic turns of your narrative). However, it's good to know you were capable of turning things around to graduate and get into a good post-secondary school. Studying film sounds interesting. It's certainly a big field.

Anyways, thanks for story. Hope things continue to go well. Take care.

BTW - Be careful your first semester. You don't want to overwhelm yourself with too many courses. Also, most people with Bipolar Disorder I know from the forum describe the period from 18-24 as being the hardest to cope with (I don't know why this is). So be careful!

Thanks for taking the time to read! I got very carried away

I want to eventually go into filmmaking/film journalism and then after a few years of either one do teacher training and teach media in a school as I think that would be a nice stable job with good pay and good holidays and I really enjoy teaching.

I'm being careful about University and making sure I don't take on more than I can handle - thanks for all of your advice

Hello and welcome to the forum! You seem to have had quite a time of it throughout your life already, and you're still very young. I would make sure that you take care of yourself throughout your college years. Maintain a steady sleep/wake cycle. Don't stay up all night studying. That can cause your moods to fluctuate. Also, be careful of taking any other substances into your body as is common among college people. Those can also affect your moods. You're story of putting spells on people like harry potter reminded me of my high school years

Thank you for taking the time to read and all of the top tips, i'll keep them in mind!

I personally don't put a whole lot of faith in the diagnostic side of psychiatry because I've been told over and over it's hard to distinguish the line between mood disorders and PTSD. It seems like you have already had pleanty of experience with people labeling panic attacks and mood disorders, but what about PTSD or a lesser form of PTSD (abuse without development of PTSD)?

Being raised by an emotionally unavailable woman will have serious emotional consequenses on a child, and more so if they were being bullied and death threatened. This will lead someone to constantly be on guard, and if you didn't develop PTSD then your still on guard all the time because thats how you were raised to be. Also, the way your father acts describes the way he was raised, he doesn't know any better way to act and it's ok to hate him for that but you can't blame him forever, in fact it's better for you if you forgive him and learn from his mistakes (you probably already planned to learn from his mistakes but did you ever consider forgiving him for not being a strong enough man to break the cycle?)

My basic thought is you hate women beacuse your mother was emotionally unavailable and treated you poorly growing up, on top of that it's possible you hate men too because the way your father acts and the way your step brother acted when young. My second thought is there is possibly an extreme incident in your 4-10 year range that may have made those symptoms worse or developed them into full bloom PTSD (Maybe you repressed the memory, maybe you diminshed its importance, maybe theres no large event but a long serious of small/medium verbal/emotional abuses), my third thought is you don't know your a mysandrist because you say your problems worsened in highschool, presuming they worsened where all young male problems worsen, by failing to succeed with women. If I'm correct you didn't do very well with women in highschool and this caused you to hate women even more.


Because you neglected to mention many of the things I inferred, and you only mentioned the side effects that come from repressing painful things, I hope you don't take offense to my presumptions but if you think what I said makes sense then you should look it over and attempt to deal with those problems and any you keep secret because as long as you let them stay in your sub-conscious they will continue to try and claw their way out. Memories never die, they are buried, forgotten or immortalized; bad memories must be immortalized then buried, when buried alive bad memories will kill your mind and after the mind dies the body follows.

Hey, thanks for your great reply!

I agree with your comments about the trouble distinguishing between different disorders - and so many people are diagnosed with multiple, overlapping disorders.

Regarding my dad, and the cycle, although I agree with this in theory: this parents were very kind to him, and to me, they actually saw me a lot more than he saw me. He also now has another family who he has lived with for 18 years now. I understand your reasoning behind getting me to forgive him - it's just hard to.

I didn't make any reference to my sexual life so I shall divulge more now: In primary school (When I was about 5?) my mum was called in because I wrote a story in which two characters had sex (apparently wrote quite descriptively), which apparently is unusual for a child of my age then. That's my earliest memory of myself being involved in anything sexual. Later on I remember having sexual encounters with other kids in my class (All male) - up until the age of about 7. This happened with about 4 students and we would sneak into (this is graphic and in retrospect seems very very weird, but I thought I should tell you - I hate talking about this though) the toilets and then we would touch each other sexually and participate in oral play. Obviously we were all pre-pubescent. I don't know how normal or rare this is, I've been told retrospectively that it's not uncommon for children to play around like this. But I remember it having a specific sexual nature. I can't remember if it was me who initiated it or them, just that it happened regularly. Then it stopped. Throughout my ages 7 - 15 I was actually completely sexually inactive (Apart from masturbation) although I was attracted to a lot of guys and girls in my classes. I found it hard to communicate (or enjoy the company of) either girls or boys until I was 15. At this age two things happened: I started being able to socialise and enjoy people's company and I got really strong feelings for a guy in my class. He wasn't gay, so there was no way anything could happen with him - but I befriended him - and became quite frustrated about it for several months until the end of that school. Then I went to the school I was only at for about half a year and there I was more sociable but my mood was a bit all over up and down so I didn't make many friends... This past 9 or so months is the first time I've really been sexually active since I was 7 (if you can call what I did when 7 "sexually active".) Three experiences to note: Firstly with a guy, when we were both drunk he came back to mine and then he (for a lack of better words) sucked me off, and I was pretty much in control of the situation. I remember that was alright, nothing special. I didn't really feel anything about it. The next time was with another guy who wanted me to suck him off. I did it, and at the time I wanted to do it, but then like during and especially after I had real issues. Like... I can't explain how I felt, other than I felt weak, and vulnerable, almost as if I'd been raped even though I hadn't, and I'd wanted to do it. And I hated it. And I got really worked up about it and angry, and walking home from the experience I got so angry that I punched a road sign and hurt my hand quite badly on it. Then when I got home I just felt so weak... I remember crying and feeling sick about it. And full on hating myself. I started drinking because I wanted to numb how I felt, and so I drank quite a lot and just sat in the shower for quite a long time crying. And I couldn't bare to think about anything sexual for like the next two weeks because I didn't want to be reminded of it. I just shut it out. The third and final experience I have to mention was about a month ago, me and this girl were drinking in my bedroom and she told me to take my shirt off, and then we started making out, and I started touching her, and then I took my underwear off and she started masturbating me, but it made me really uncomfortable for some reason so I asked her to stop. I finished myself off and then we got dressed and went out drinking and forgot about it.

I enjoy exploring my mind, like this, going back over memories, trying to figure it out, put it together and come to some conclusion. And this obviously isn't stuff I want to talk to my friends about because it would create a lot of awkwardness...

"In primary school (When I was about 5?) my mum was called in because I wrote a story in which two characters had sex (apparently wrote quite descriptively), which apparently is unusual for a child of my age then. That's my earliest memory of myself being involved in anything sexual. Later on I remember having sexual encounters with other kids in my class (All male) - up until the age of about 7"

My first incident with sex came at 4 as well, a boy who was 8 tried to manipulate me into oral sex, "luckily" his father came in and stopped it before anything happened. He beat the child within an inch of his life and those 2 incidents scarred me as if I had been molested and beaten although neither ever happened. I repressed that memory until I was about 14 or 15 when it came back to me while I was black-out drunk.
Chances are you repressed your earlies memories of sex because thats correct, children under 8-10 have never even heard of sex unless another child their age introduced them (the child who introduced you was introduced by another child or a pedophile, no child is born knowing how to do those things).

I also struggled with mixed feelings towards men and women, my sexuality was very confusing in early highschool beacuse I would think men were attractive but sexual thoughts of men would make me hate myself. In secret, my mind wanted me to relive my trauma so I could get over it, not have sex with men. This could also be your situation (or maybe your bi sexual, but based on your reaction to that 2nd BJ by a guy I would highly doubt it), it's OK to have done what you did and it's not right to blame yourself for reaching out to explore such a feeling.

I can understand why that experience would effect you like that - as a child it must have been quite troubling and the effect later in life of stuff like that is substantial.

I describe myself as bisexual because I find myself attracted to both sexes, but I don't like gay clubs or anything like that. I don't see it as a big deal, sexuality.