Am I Bipolar?

Hello everyone, I'm new to this site! I have an appointment to see a Psychiatrist tomorrow! Wish me luck! LOL I made a list and a journal of a typical week, to take with me and have pasted it below, I would be really interested to see what you guys think! The Bad… 1. I want some peace, peace of mind. 2. Using all my energy to calm down. Spending all my life trying to cheer up or calm down. 3. It’s not funny anymore, I used to laugh at myself and say “well this is it, it’s just me, just the way I am”. 4. Not caring what people think of my behaviour . 5. The uncontrolled thoughts. 6. Disco in my head. 7. Endlessly finding myself counting. 8. Racing mind, disrupting everything I try to do. 9. Wanting to isolate myself from the world and everyone in it. 10. Feeling jumpy. 11. Feelings of waiting, always waiting for something to happen. 12. Irritated, agitated feelings. 13. Feeling guilty for not achieving things or not finishing things. 14. Never feeling sexually satisfied. 15. Uncontrollable unspecific pressure to do something! 16. Missing memories of hours, days, months and years! 17. Do I butter my toast or close the back door? 18. Anxious about each little task to the point where each is a mountain of difficulty and I give up because each task feels absolutely impossible. 19. Going for a social night out and being loud and noisy but being unable to stop my own actions, even though I know I want to! 20. Knowing that the stuff I need to take to the tip is going to require two trips but I have to do it in one because it needs doing NOW! 21. Forgetting then remembering what I’m doing is so frustrating. 22. Next door neighbours little boy skipping up and down the drive initiates a fight and flight reaction and I pull away and cringe. 23. The sound of the TV adds yet another source of stimuli to overreact to. 24. Every change in the tone or volume causes me to twitch or jump. 25. Knowing what I am supposed to do and being unable to do it. 26. Imagine knowing what I am not supposed to do but doing it anyway. 27. No control at all, no choice, just riding with the actions, riding with life, and then riding with the consequences! 28. Unable to concentrate, unable to hold thought patterns together. 29. Unable to sleep. 30. Vivid dreams! 31. Waking up and jumping out of my skin, like someone has sneaked into my bedroom and you realise they are there! 32. Can’t go out, paranoia sets in about driving and crowds and how it makes me feel. 33. Driving becomes difficult and hazardous. I overreact to oncoming or overtaking vehicles and often overcompensate by swerving out of the way. I am distracted by all the cars whizzing by and by things that I pass by. My memory failure makes it difficult keep a mental picture of traffic around me. At junctions, if I look for cars in one direction, by the time I check the other direction I have forgotten if there are oncoming cars from the first direction. 34. Getting slightly twitchy and driving is difficult; I react to every single little distraction on the roads. This includes cars on both sides of me, trying to read signs on the sides of the road, admiring the colour of the grass shrouded in rain. I also try to change a CD when driving on the road in high speed congested traffic. I know this is stupid but I do it any way. Don't actually play the CD, turn on the radio instead and spend the remainder of the time switching between two radio stations. Every 20 or so seconds. I cannot concentrate on any one thing and one of the effects is that I cannot watch the rear view mirror long enough to make sure that I actually see what is in it. Can’t hold a mental picture of the vehicles moving in front of, behind, or at the side of my car. The overreacting to stimuli has reached the point that I feel like I’m going to physically swerving my car to many of the things that I see, even if they are not near to my vehicle or a threat. The twitchiness isn't helping in controlling the car. I am expending a lot of effort damping these reactions. 35. I spend 99% of my energy fighting myself and 1% being productive. On really bad days I spend all my energy and all my reserves just being present and appearing acceptable to society. If by chance anything gets done it’s a godsend! 36. I feel as I if I am an observer of my own life, standing behind a piece of glass and watching myself stagger through daily life. I know exactly what is wrong but I am unable to reach through the glass to get ‘the me’ who is living to change habits or actions. 37. Getting myself into dangerous situations and not caring or even realising what I’m doing. 38. Screaming at Nigel, then not remembering what I’ve said or done. I don’t want to hurt him I love him to pieces. 39. Not being able to decide whether to brush my teeth or get a bath first. Can't brush my hair because I get caught in the back and forth thoughts of brushing my hair /getting a bath that eventually I give up and don’t do anything. After having a bath, I can't decide whether to put on my top or jeans first. Put on my top, but then I can't decide whether to put on the right shoe next or the left sock next. Can't remember where the car keys are, and have a foreboding, every morning, that I am forgetting things, important things to do. Every day is like this. I've been living like this for years and years and accepting it as a normal part of life. 40. Having to apologise to people for how you acted the day before, the feelings of shame and guilt for the things I’ve done or said, even if I can’t remember! 41. Muscles becoming tight and tense when things irritate me. 42. My heart feels like its going to jump out of my chest it’s beating that fast. The panic that this causes. 43. Getting twitchy, have to fiddle with something. 44. I don't feel like going to sleep. I have all this energy and I can go until 3 am without feeling drowsy or muzzy headed. And then I'll get up at 6:30 am feeling perfectly refreshed. 45. Picking up or putting down stuff can become a bit spastic, and can be really irritating. 46. I tend to feel jittery, as if my hands are shaking, but if I hold them up to check them, I seem to be able to hold them steady and I feel like I’m shaking inside. 47. Verbally twitchy. I talk to myself, repeating the words to myself. Usually it is quiet, but it's also fairly common for someone to ask me if I was speaking to them. 48. Saying things out loud when I actually thought I was thinking them. 49. There is a tendency when speaking to have sentences trail off without finishing them. More frequently, I would be in the midst of a sentence and forget the next word or phrase I wanted to say. 50. I forget all the words I need to use to show the point I was trying to make. I would be able to visualise what I want to say, but not be able to think how to say it. 51. I get the intense urge to do stupid or silly things to people, even if I know it will irritate them. I will say inappropriate jokes or comments, or try to poke / tickle people, or interrupt others in the middle of their conversation, or butt into conversations I am not a part of. 52. I happily say hello to strangers in the street. I smile at the things people do. I go out of my way to be helpful, even involving myself in conversations that I am no part of. 53. I have difficulty being in a crowd. Every thing that happens catches my attention and I get so confused trying to see and listen to everything simultaneously that I can't focus on the conversation with the person in front of me. 54. I react to incidents way out of proportion to what is needed, either by becoming too excited, or too angry, or too happy, or too anxious. 55. I can escalate arguments or turn simple incidents into major ones. 56. I get irritated about the smallest things. 57. I argue with waiters. 58. I get annoyed with shop assistants. 59. I get short tempered with my friends and my family. 60. I argue about truly petty things at home. 61. I even quarrel because I may find things aren't being done quickly enough to suit me. 62. I can easily become loud and vicious and say mean and cruel things. 63. I get easily confused or distracted if I have more than one thing to do. Everything becomes equally urgent and I find myself swapping between doing 5 things at once (and getting none done properly). I cannot concentrate enough to do one thing because I feel I need to get everything done now! I start walking back and forth between two locations to get two things done simultaneously. And often, when I finish them all and I realise I still have three hours left, I feel odd, as if I was pushing against a hurricane wind and it has stopped and I've fallen flat. 64. The number of things I am thinking of can get so numerous and intense that they can halt any functionality I have as I sit down and think on them instead of getting ahead with what I have to do. 65. I will suddenly decide to start a lot of projects in a one or two day period in the desire to put into action all the good ideas I am having. However, very few of the projects I start will be followed through or finished. 66. I can’t read documents or letters because I cannot concentrate. After a few minutes I want to get up and walk around, or I sit and think of unrelated things, or I get excited and start thinking of a grander plan. 67. If someone wants to help me to do something, I quickly become impatient with their slowness or inability to do the job right. 68. Memory about facts or items fail. I can't remember dates, names of things, or when I met people, or telephone numbers. I often can't remember activities that I have done unless strongly reminded. I forget things I have to do, appointments, etc. 69. When I do sleep, I get vivid realistic full colour dreams. I feel as I am actually living these dreams as if they are real life. In real life, sometimes I'm not certain if my memories are from real life or from one of these dreams. The Good… 1. My energy level rises and anything I want to do, I just do. I feel confident about my decisions. Nothing is problematic - I can fix anything. I feel good about myself and I'm happy. I have the best of all possible lives. This is like the feeling you get when you've just successfully pulled off a great project. Except it stays with us all the time. And it's wonderful, if I could have this feeling all the time, I would. 2. I can persuade people to follow my lead. I can see what needs to be done and will take charge in a group. 3. If I'm out partying, I'm a centre of attention. I have no problems chatting with strangers, and I can always pick up someone if I wanted to. I'm can be the best date anyone’s ever had thoughtful, funny, romantic, willing to do unusual or wildly silly things for you. You'll probably get poetry too, I have a way with words. My world would revolve around you. 4. I want the best things, and I'm willing to pay for them. Show me the newest gorgeous boots and persuade me to buy them. I will. And price doesn't matter. “It’s one of those she’s got to have it”. 5. I can get focused on one project almost to the exclusion of everything else. I visualise with crystal clarity what needs to be done and I can't wait to get back to working on the project. 6. The intensity of good feelings, music, taste, smell, sex, the sun on my face, it’s like feeling the sun for the first time ever! 7. If the crowd is in good spirits, I pick up the mood and magnify it so that I may become to the most boisterous, funny, witty, daring, person present. I can be either the life of the party or the clown. 8. I can get loads of things done as I think more clearly, and move faster. 9. I get ideas on all the things I want to do , good ideas. Wonderful ideas that will transform my life. You really want to read what a week in my head is like? Mon 24 th Aug 2009 Didn’t sleep well, woke up at 3am head going, jumping from one idea to the next, nodded off finally about 5am up at 7. Feeling Agitated and wound up, I want to do something but can’t be bothered. It’s like I’m waiting for something to happen! I’m trying to keep calm, deep breathing etc. Too much silence but the TV adverts are winding me up! Good afternoon feeling ‘okay’! Okay until bedtime, major depression setting in, it’s like getting into a warm bath and a blackness washes over me, an empty heavy space in my stomach, physically pulling me down, arms and legs are so heavy, withdrawing from the world, hiding away, tired of feeling tired, disco in my head! Crying into Nigel’s shoulder! Tues All on putting one foot in front of the other, major operation just getting washed and dressed wanted to stay in bed but heads going again! Supposed to be shopping today, can’t face it! Just want to sleep! Feel like life is passing me by because of feeling crap all the time! Need to stop myself falling into that black hole! Feel exhausted but can’t sleep asked Nigel to get something for tea but I feel really guilty! Starving hungry can’t stop eating. Wound up a little agitated and feel like I’m shaking inside, feel a bit paranoid like someone’s watching me. Bath and counting in my head which drives me nuts, it’s like it’s not me, used a whole bottle of bath Gel stuff! Bed time, took me ages and ages to get off to sleep, loads of energy head going jumping from one idea to the next, tossing and turning all night with my back as usual unless I’m totally wiped out, usual back makes me stir then head wakes me up! Wed Don’t feel too bad, wide awake and loads of energy for a change. Hopefully it will last and I will be able to go to Sainsbury’s today! Might do a Shirley Valentine and leave a note on the fridge Dinners in the Dog buggered off to Greece LOL! Getting loads done today, countless games of Spider, tidied my dressing room including emptying my suitcase from the weekend! 2 loads of washing, emptied and re-loaded the dishwasher, cleaned the kitchen, hoovered and sorted the re-cycling! Sorted!! TV is winding me up whilst writing this! Mute button, fabulous!! 11:30, done the shopping. The noise of the traffic drives me nuts, too many people in Sainsbury’s feels like they are all coming at me, checkout woman throwing the shopping at me so I told her “I’m not paying you until I’ve packed it at the top of my voice and could you please slow down” felt like screaming at her and had to ask her again to slow down, she gave me a filthy look but I don’t care! Deep breathing! Felt like I was swerving all over the road driving home, had to take my cardigan off and had the air con on, boiling hot, probably the menopause kicking in! 11:40 shopping done and put away!!! Afternoon, really fed up agitated, irritable, picked up my new project for 5 minutes but can’t be bothered with that! Keep thinking the fridge is flashing at me out of the corner of my eye but of course it isn’t! Wide awake at bedtime, heads buzzing! Finally dropped off and slept ok with the wine and pills. Thurs Slept okay, but only due to a bottle of wine, 2 Phenergan’s and 2 Amitriptyline!!! Feeling ‘okay’ this morning! Well I thought I was, disco in my head again, starting to feel wound up! I am so sick of this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Tired of feeling like this! Sick of waiting to feel ‘okay’! Just had all on getting washed and brushing my hair! Sun’s shinning would love to take Emily for a walk, no where to walk her round here though. Too dangerous, I could just sit in the back garden but in the house at the end of the garden there’s a bloke watching me, I can see him from the mirror he has, I actually thought it was all in my head, but Emily saw him once and was barking at him and Nigel was around so I have a witness!!! Muting the adverts they’re driving me nuts, want to do something but can’t be bothered! I could go into that ‘black hole’ if I thought about it long enough but I won’t think about that now, I’ll think about that tomorrow! Why is it that when I do stupid things I wind myself up??? Why won’t someone help me, I go to my doctors and they just look at me like I’m gone out, why am I writing this, I think this stuff in my head then when I’m writing it, it feels like it’s not me! Really, really tired! Fri Can’t eat, can’t sleep! Exhausted, tired worn out total mental and physical crash! Vague memories of last night, wonderful meal out with Nigel, having a laugh with the lads in the kitchen, Nigel went to bed so I followed him, wide awake can’t sleep don’t want to sleep, full of energy, wanted to chat to Nigel but he was really tired! A bottle and half of wine, 2 Phenergan and 2 Amitriptyline still wide awake, buzzing!!! Trying to talk to Nigel about it, explain, but he doesn’t understand me, oh he loves me I know he does, feeling buzzy, ideas springing into my head faster than I can grasp them, okay so I will take the latest idea and once again charge ahead and get on with it, but if I do I know in the midst of it, I will forget what I’m doing! But it’s okay! A far grander plan has formed, and I’ll charge ahead into that instead! Other people won’t be able to see it, they can’t see the bigger plan, my task is important and it must get done, I don’t have time to wait around for people to catch up with me, things need to happen and they need to happen NOW! Trivial things just can’t get in the way! But then I know the flaws with inevitably start to appear, and I will stop my plans and curse the gods and start again. Hours will become days and in the end I’ll have nothing to show for it but a mess that I don’t know what to do with, like a pile of half made jewellery or a pile of half painted paintings or a pile of dress fabric I don’t know what to do with! Sounds like fun and very amusing, doesn’t it? But in reality it’s terrifying, becoming locked into a thought pattern and not being able to get out of it until something else comes along, tempting me with whatever glamour it possesses. Trapped for days considering insignificant things, family annoying the hell out of me because they want feeding, they want a clean house, Nigel wants to do something, everyone wanting a piece of me, Emily wants feeding, don’t bother me now, this is more important!!! Here we go again, housework, relationships and health going down the drain!!! Obsessing again over the tiny details of my life, I will start to panic, running up to people for help and snapping at any suggestion they might make. Lying awake at night, planning how I’m going to make myself disappear, I’ll run away, start a new life in Greece , and move to London to be near Darren, move to Bridlington to be near the Girls, I can’t settle, the weight of the depression is constantly fighting with the restlessness and agitation of how I feel! All so familiar...Everything is wonderful so why do I just go snap, snap into that black hole…Why can’t I be a productive part of humanity? Instead I’m on that oh so familiar path of screwing up my life and taking others with me! Spending thousands of pounds of money I haven’t got, staying drunk for days on end, quit jobs, and lose friends! Here I go on that same old familiar path, trying time and time again to just hold on, just for one more day, just keep putting one foot in front of the other and it will pass, but sadly I don’t think I can for much longer, I want to be ‘normal’ I want to enjoy my life, I have three wonderful children and a beautiful home and an amazing husband that loves me! Something is going to give, the fears, the depression; the agitation, the anxiety, suicidal thoughts, can’t sleep, mad dreams and paranoia are once again becoming overwhelming!!! A mother would suffer hell for her children, and that’s what my life is, I can’t kill myself because I’m 42 and I still need my Mum, I can’t do that to my kids, so I live in this hell!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It’s just me, it’s just the way I am, isn’t it? Nigel says I was saying weird things last night, and that he’s really worried about me, I don’t remember, should I feel ashamed? Embarrassed? Guilty for the things I’ve done or said? That’s hard when I can’t even remember! It’s just me, it’s just the way I am and the way I’ve always been, wacky Gaynor, life and soul of the party Gaynor, dippy Gaynor, they don’t see, so I just smile and hide it, it’s not fare on them, it’s not anyone’s fault!! Vague memories of searching for my car keys, driving whilst drunk madly through the streets and on a total buzz done that a few times! Even the people closest to me who accept the way I am, don’t see it, it’s not their fault I don’t blame them, it’s helps me to escape the locked-in overwhelming feelings, so stressed and trapped and so locked-in to a thought pattern the only way out is a short, sharp shock to my body, it seems to snap me out and back to normal consciousness. Everyone else takes life in their stride why can’t I? Why am I such a failure? I’m surviving I’m still here, I’m a born survivor I haven’t crumbled at a mad life, a lot of people would have, a lot of people wouldn’t have got back up from a cot death, physically and mentally abusive marriage, from loosing their Farther and Mother to cancer whilst very young, from a long addiction to Cocaine, from 2 failed marriages and having to bring 3 children up on my own whilst looking after my terminally ill mother, I have the tools to get back up again!!! That’s a beautiful thing isn’t it? Suicide, what a novel concept, ha! GP’s, you go for help they drug you up and watch you like watching animals in a Zoo, but they can’t ****ing help, I need advice and assistance, and the GP’s just sit there looking at me with a blank expression on their faces, try these antidepressants, “but they make me worse”, I need to sleep, I have mad ideas and thoughts HELP ME!!!!!!!!!!!!! So this is how my life is I just accept it! Life sometimes is unbearable it would be great if things would just go away, I’d like to hide in a bubble, and hibernate until I feel ready to face the world again. I just want to completely disappear from the world. Am I selfish for having these feelings? The concept of taking myself out of the human race is an amazing idea, I’ll move to the middle of nowhere, grow my own Veg and be self sufficient, that really appeals to me, but my relationships save me, don’t they? My reason for living is my children, my sanity is Nigel, I can see how my life has become so much more stable since I met Nigel! It’s a lonely place I live in, I may feel broken sometimes and incomplete, it can be scary, but I have a unique view of the world, I value that, I’m individual, I have a unique view of myself, a deep understanding of what makes me tick and of who and what I am, I am creative, feeling the wonder of the sun on my face and the wind in my hair, the wonder of colours, smells, tastes and touch, I have a drive and passion that a lot of people would love to feel. This is me, this is who I am, I don’t want to change who I am, do I? But something clearly isn’t right with me! I am intelligent, amusing, bewildering and downright dippy I just happen to have a mind that functions differently to that of the norm! I’m alright it’s everyone else!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sat Need to calm down, feeling really wound up, nothings happened to cause this, feel like I’m shaking inside again! Struggling to eat so I must be wound up, my little band friend always tightens up when I’m wound up! So what am I going to do today, started a crochet scarf last night, don’t like it so I will make a poncho for TJ, I’ve had this great idea that I’ll make the girls loads of presents for Xmas this year! Felt fine all afternoon, now I’m getting really wound up there’s a bloody dog outside constantly barking, if it doesn’t shut up I’m going to scream at its owners!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The lads come into the kitchen and I’m really irritated by them I was fine all day on my own! Why won’t people just leave me alone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh and the poncho is rubbish, gone all wrong, it must be the wool so I’ve ordered some more off the net! Sun Morning, 3:30am…Nice, 1 Bottle of Wine last night, nodded off in the middle of a film I wanted to watch so I didn’t take any tablets, great, wide awake at stupid O’clock again! Woke up with all kinds of crap going around my head, thoughts of death, what would I do if Nigel died, planning my own funeral, imagining it! Kicking the covers off all night again, far too hot, must be the menopause! I’ll sit and play endless games of Spider!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Tried to go to bed for an hour, just woke up with a real start, heart pumping madly, thought the house was shaking with a mad wind and a feeling of falling, not sure where I am when I wake up, it’s terrifying, I could actually hear it, my head won’t stop, can’t keep still, agitated and wound up, this is exactly what happens if I don’t have any pills!!!!!!!!!!! I feel jet-lagged! Wide awake at bedtime!