A short bit about
what brings me here:
I have battled with depression most of my adult life and have been treated several times with prozac...I have always been smart, did well in school, managed a company, am an above board floral designer, now I run my own company(a perfectionist and very type a). I had gastric bypass surgery 3 years ago and have lost 210lbs, I was severely overweight. I had a bunch of trauma like instances happen before surgery and after surgery fell into a very very bad depression and without my drug of choice (food) to fall to I felt I was not constructively dealing with it all...for 2 1/2 years I lived a life that I felt was not my own..I avoided mail, bills, going out etc...I couldn't deal with my business and even small decisions became an issue...in my quest to finally find out what was "wrong" with me, I was seeing a therapist...12 weeks and she said I was fine and I was just very hard on myself...I was not very honest with her and never felt like I was honest with myself(putting on the happy face and doing what I have always done) so that got me no where..over the last three years I have been doing some soul searching trying to pinpoint where I "go wrong" and thought for a while that I had ADD but it was never caught because I didn't struggle and was well smart enough to conjure up coping mechanisms..
about 9-12 months ago, I finally dragged myself out of the alternate life I was living, got my crap together straightened out where I had avoided things and got my life back onto the organized normalcy I was used to..everything was going great, I got huge amount of things done, I felt focused, I was happy(sometimes too happy), my house was together, I was entertaining, I was helping other peolpe, I took on a side business...etc etc...now for the last 3 months I seem to be down in the trenches again and even though things are not bad, I have a fear of losing control of my life again...so bad that my husband is starting to think I am nuts...He said that I am not dealing with things rationally..I have a whole lot of fears and anxiety, I take on way more than I can handle(at times) and he is right it is not normal..
So in my soul searching and now dealing with my emotions and not eating through each and every one I am feeling like I might have bipolar...I ahve a family history..my fathers mother had severe bipolar and my aunt had bipolar 2, another aunt has schizophrenia, as a result I have major stigmas attached to these diseases and even had a huge problem admitting I may need medication for depression hence the push through the depression for so many years...but I want to be normal and get myself on a positive track and stay there..when looking back on my life, I have noticed cycles of feeling good and feeling not so good...when I feel good, I am positive, motivated, driven, accomplished, I can do anything and do way more than normal people..I am simply amazing...then the not feeling so good, I am hard on myself when I can't meet the demands of my other life, I feel bad, guilty, ashamed, just a sea of negativity, I have sleep issues, anxiety and just plain miserable on most subjects, I push through these times with affirmation therapy and just hope that the cycle is quick..if it lasts too long I go on meds...Problem is this, on the meds I miss the super productive me and never get into that cycle, I thrive on that person(my manic episodes, I find to be milder than my grandma's), I feel my best as that person, the medicated person is OK, just average and I have a problem with average...but I have a bigger problem with negative Nancy...
now my questions...
Does this sound like bipolar?
Is there medication, that will stop the depression and not totally depress the mania??
As time goes on, do the depressive episode get longer or is it always a crapshoot?