Diagnosed Bipolar...not so sure anymore.

After two hospitalizations earlier this year, I was diagnosed bipolar 1 due to a mixed episode and history of major depression.

I've been on at least a dozen anti depressants and mood stabilizers, and none of them have had any effect on how I feel at all, only just nasty side effects. I get the feeling that my thoughts dictate my mood rather than a chemical imbalance, and because my supposed manic symptoms felt more like extreme anxiety and a complete mental break down, I may not be bipolar, or I may also have a personality disorder. I have some obsessive compulsive traits, and I think sometimes I focus (and obsess) on the negatives or the positives and it affects my mood profoundly.

I don't meet the criteria for borderline very well, but these are symptoms I do have:

1. Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.
I've gone from loving myself to hating myself, feeling superior and inferior, and being totally indifferent. My self esteem often changes over the course of weeks, and sometimes days or hours.

2. Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, threats or self-injuring behavior such as cutting, interfering with the healing of scars or picking at oneself (excoriation).
I started cutting my wrist when I was 11. I stopped by age 12 until around 16 and 17, then stopped altogether by 18, but only because I don't want to leave scars. I have a large scar from a cut on my wrist that went almost down to the bone that was made when I had a supposed mixed episode.

3. Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days).
I get all 3 of these things on occasion.

4. Chronic feelings of emptiness
I've had problems with this since age 11, but it has gotten better recently (almost 19 now).

5. Inappropriate anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights).
I sometimes want to tear people a new asshole when they smile at me or want to talk to me. I can hide it, but I did punch a kid in the 7th grade after he provoked me, right in front of 30 people, all of whom miraculously didn't see it.
6. Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation, delusions or severe dissociative symptoms
I've had times where I felt unreal and outside of reality. Other times I feel constant low level stress that I'm being watched, or people are trying to listen in on me or observe me.


Problems with interpersonal relationships is N/A because I've never had one. I have friends, yes, and my parents are ok, but I've never been close to anyone, so I don't know how it would go. I have no fear of abandonment because I'm used to being by myself 23 hours a day, and I'm not very impulsive, except when it comes to self harm.

I wonder a lot if I have emotional dysregulation. Right before the mixed episode, my mood started rapid cycling between intense depression and feeling Euphoric and elated. These mini episodes only lasted hours to a full day, but continued cycling for several weeks before it escalated and got me hospitalized involuntarily for a suicide attempt.

Does it sound like my problems are purely mood-related, or is it possibly a personality problems as well?

Sadly, I have no way of answering your questions, but I can say that I feel like I'm in the same situation. For so long I've been told I was bipolar, but lately I've been questioning that, and at times I identify with borderline way more than bipolar. So, as helpful or unhelpful as it may be, I can at least offer you the assurance that you are not the only one feeling like this.

I'm diagnosed with both Bipolar and BPD. How I can tell the difference, is by my triggers. Bipolar is a chemical imbalance. I get those mood swings regardless. The mood swings I get from my BPD are usually triggered by something something like feelings of abandonment or being invalidated, they typically last only a short period of time. I'm over with within a few hours to a day or so. My therapist tells me that a lot of people, and almost all women have traits of BPD but not the full blown disorder. Bipolar and BPD are two of the most commonly misdiagnosed disorders because their symptoms mimic each other very closely. Talk to your doctor about why he feels you fit one diagnosis and not the other.