Could this be bipolar. Just advice please. I know can’t be diagnosed online.

I feel disconnected and different from people and like I don't fit in with anyone most of the time, but not always. I feel an empty feeling that's very hard to articulate. I feel strange and different from everyone. I often struggle to socialise with people, especially new people. I struggle to hold a conversation and most of the time it feels forced and unnatural.  I get very anxious about having conversations with some people. My heart races and I end up sweating, shaking and talking too fast and go off in a tangent about something random. Sometimes I’m speaking so fast that I feel like words are coming out before my thoughts have processed. I make myself feel and look stupid. I can often be very introverted and usually isolate myself and hide away from people and avoid contact with anyone. When I’m talking I get so nervous I forget what I’m talking about sometimes, it’s like something is blocking my thoughts and I go completely blank.

I feel intimidated and inferior to people who are intelligent, pretty or have big personalities. I feel like im being judged in a negative way by everyone - even my own family. Most of my life is controlled by what I think other people think of me. I hate the thought of being disliked by anyone. I lack a sense of who I am and I live a vicarious life. I mostly live through other people and take on their interests and likes as my own. My style, likes and dislikes etc change a lot. I can not build my own sense of meaning. I need constant reassurance that people like me and constant approval from other people. If I don’t get this I become paranoid that people are talking about me and dislike me and are against me. Then I isolate myself away from people and want to hurt myself and get thoughts of killing myself. I feel like I don’t know who I am because my personality will change depending on who I’m trying to fit in with. I feel like my entire existence is controlled by what others think of me and gaining approval from people. 

Sometimes I have so many different thoughts I don’t know what thoughts are mine or real. I have days where my mind is racing I feel like I have all different conflicting thoughts and I struggle to work out what thought to listen to. I over analyse and overthink all the thoughts. I analyse situations from every possible angle then end up with too many thoughts. My mind ends up racing with millions of conflicting and contradicting thoughts and I don’t know what thought is mine or what thought I should react to. I don’t understand how my thoughts can change so quickly. I struggle to keep up with my thinking. When my thinking is like this I can't make decisions because my thoughts are too fast, complicated and contradicting. They make me irritated and frustrated. I get very confused and overwhelmed. My thoughts are so fast that I feel like inside my mind is like a strobe light. Sometimes I feel like my racing thoughts are happening whilst I’m asleep and I’ll wake up through the night or in the morning with a racing heart feeling terrified and full of dread. They affect me physically I become agitated, restless and fidgety. I can't concentrate then I feel very frustrated. I usually internalise this, then I want to hurt myself or drink til oblivion to get relief. I feel the need to hurt myself because I’m so fustrated and overwhelmed to get some relief from it all. The more I try and work out my racing thoughts the more angry and frustrated I get and get thoughts of hurting or killing myself, which are very vivid. Then I start to battle with the idea of doing it or not. Sometimes I know I’m not brave enough to do it which makes me even worse. 

When I’m like this I get no pleasure out of life, nothing interests me. I feel empty, disconnected and numb to life. I feel like I have no emotions sometimes except fear, anger and self hatred. I get annoyed and irritated with everyone. My own family irritate and annoy me even though they’re doing nothing wrong. I become irritable and frustrated in their company sometimes and everything they do annoys me. I try not to react and internalise the anger then want to hurt myself. I feel like I cant connect with them sometimes and struggle to have a conversation with them as well. When I feel like this I end up feeling guilty and wishing they would give up on me. I feel like I don’t deserve their love sometimes. I want to hide away from people when I’m like this and be alone. I spend most of my time worrying about things. I feel like I'm not good enough and like I'm never going to get anywhere in life. I feel like I will never be happy. If I make a mistake or say something stupid I get angry at myself and want to hurt myself. I dwell and obsess on things for ages. I get very intense thoughts about hurting myself. I feel lost and worthless and I hate myself. I feel trapped when I’m like this and terrified for my future. I don’t have much motivation most of the time, I sleep a lot and it feels like life is just passing me by. Sometimes I get this overwhelming feeling that makes me feel like I’m going to burst out crying. But it’s not a feeling of sadness it’s like overwhelming frustration and irritation. I feel like I don't belong here sometimes and that I have nothing to offer to anyone. I feel like I am just an existence at times. A lot of the time nothing interests me I get nothing out of life. I don’t get much pleasure or satisfaction and never really feel real happiness. Everything feels overwhelming when I’m like this. I have no sense of my own self or what I want from life. I feel like I need something to make me feel something like drink and drugs. When I drink I feel complete. I feel at ease like the way I think I should feel when I’m sober. It makes me feel complete and fills the empty feeling I feel when I’m sober. It makes me feel relaxed, confident and careless whilst easing the racing thoughts. I hate myself and don’t want to feel like this anymore. Everything is confusing.

I shift from one mindset to another about everything in life and find it hard to make decisions. Nothing is consistent. I struggle to keep up with the constant shifts in mindsets which makes it hard for me to know what I like/dislike because it changes so often. I start things which are like a novelty then I completely lose interest. I can’t keep up with my thoughts and how much they change all the time from wanting to do well in life to not caring about anything or anyone. I can’t keep up with how quickly my mood changes sometimes. It can be very unpredictable. I can wake up feeling ok then become easily irritated by people. I get internally angry and annoyed at simple things. My mood can be dramatically affected by other people’s opinions of me or by paranoid thoughts i’m having about people disliking me or not understanding me. Most of the time I am very hopeless, negative, frustrated and irritated. However sometimes I feel normal and connected to life. I have periods/phases where life feels good. I can socialise with people and feel like people like and care about me and that everyone is thinking about me. I even like myself and I have lots to talk about and feel like a normal person. I am more positive about my future and worry much less. I want to be around friends and arrange to meet up with them. Its hard to articulate but I’ll feel very light and like I can move around quicker and easier with more energy. It feels like the weight of the world has been lifted from shoulders and I have a feeling of anticipation, excitement and joy like something good is going to happen. In this mood, I can’t understand why I felt so bad when I did and I believe that I don’t need any help from anyone and that my life has been fixed. I believe that all my low moods are over and I’m going to be happy for the rest of my life. Most of the time this feeling comes on gradually, everyday I’ll feel less and less negative, worried and drained. I can feel myself getting better every day. I usually have a peak day or two where everything feels amazing and I feel so happy that I become emotional because I believe that all the suffering is over. Overall this mood never usually lasts long only about a week or two weeks at the most. Sometimes I can feel my mood getting gradually worse after this and other times I’ll wake up it shifts completely from feeling very good to feeling very bad and irritated etc again. Sometimes circumstances affect my mood and other times there is nothing to explain the change in mindset and mood.

My mood is sometimes seriously affected by the energy I feel from other people. When I’m in a good mood, I feel lots of emotion, love, empathy and compassion for people and feel the need to help people who are in need/hurt/struggling. Sometimes my mood is erratic throughout the day and all over the place, I struggle to keep up with my emotions.

I find it very hard to concentrate on general things most of the time. I feel like I live in my mind and constantly overthink therefore I’m constantly listening to all the thoughts going on in my head. When I’m having a conversation with people I usually lose interest, my mind wanders and I struggle to concentrate on what they’re saying. I often interrupt people, when something they say triggers a thought in my mind, instead of waiting til they finish what they’re saying, I interrupt. I also find it very difficult to sit and concentrate on things like TV. I become restless and always feel like I need to be doing something or I have too much anticipation about whatever I’m watching which makes me agitated and restless. Also when I’m talking, I sometimes completely forget what I’m talking about or when someone asks me a question it’s like my thoughts become blocked and I can’t think to answer and it makes me feel stupid. I am very forgetful and feel like I am never present. I constantly lose things all the time, forget appointments, forget things people have told me etc and this makes me very frustrated and angry at myself. I feel like I’m always doing things too fast and rushed. 

I have very obsessive thinking and I get lots of people based obsessions. I can’t tell the difference if this is fancying someone, being in love with them or obsession with them. I get fixated on certain people, usually women, I want to be like them, to emulate them, and I can't stop thinking about them. They are usually someone superior to me who show they care about me in some sort of way or show me the slightest bit of attention. Often it would be people like police, teachers, doctors etc sometimes just people in general but usually females older than me. I crave their attention and want to be noticed by them.  I want to be able to get to know them more and it’s usually someone who I’ll never see again or won’t see very often. I’ll try and find information about them and try and find out places they frequent so I can see them. I sometimes get so obsessed with particular people that I can't think about anything else. I identify as being gay most of the time, so thats probably why it’s women. I keep this obsession private because I am worried that it could be misinterpreted, but I don’t necessarily stalk anyone. I can control my behaviour to an extent. The obsessions are more mentally based, and I look at the persons I’m obsessing about Facebook and fantasise about them. Because I’m so obsessed with these people it can affect my behaviour. For example with police I’ll usually deliberately get in trouble whilst I’m drinking to get attention from police to feed my obsession. 

I can get quite paranoid sometimes where I think cameras are watching me. I believe people are spying on me. I’ve thought my residents in my work were undercover actors for programmes to expose bad carers or that they have cameras in their rooms. I believe people in meetings I go to have a vendetta against me and are spreading stuff about me and that people are being different with me because they don’t like me. I feel like it’s my intuition telling me because i feel I’m a good judge of character and good at reading people. I feel like everyone is talking about me and doesn’t like me most of the time. When people laugh I feel like they’re laughing at me. When my thoughts are paranoid my thinking becomes extreme. If I believe people are talking about me I feel the need to kill myself. I’ve had thoughts in the third person telling me to do things to hurt myself. The thoughts sounded all different and spoke to me in different ways, like aggressive male, calming female, my own voice. They came in calling me Nicola (my name), You and I. They were very intense. Another time in work I thought I heard my name being whispered 3 times and it felt like an entity and came from the walls. It scared me but after it I wasn’t sure if I actually heard it or not.

My life is very confusing and my thoughts are very draining. I don’t want to feel like this anymore. I sometimes feel like I’m going crazy.

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