Do I have Bipolar or Post Traumatic stress syndrome?

I am 22 years old and have felt out of control for my whole life. I have come from a  very abusive background and up until a year ago have experienced some sort of trauma nearly every single day of my life. My earliest memories are from about 4 years old and from that age until about 18 years old my whole focus was about trying to get through every day alive and  trying to protect my Mother from my father , who many times than not would have killed her without me intervening. He was a  very violent man and was also physically and verbally abusive towards me but this was never my concern because I didn't care what he did to me as long as he left my Mother alone. When we did get out of that situation, there where extremely long and traumatising court  cases that followed and one of them was him suing me which resulted me in being $10 000 dollars of debt at the age of 19. He was  manipulative and lied and twisted every story. Because of my financial  situation I could not afford to fight it  anymore. It was a very complicated situation and this is only about a tenth of the whole story. I have learnt that the law is only there to protect the  criminals and is very  hard on the victims.

Any ways while some of these court cases where going on I also nearly lost my Mother to an anerysm that burst in her brain. She was in intensive care for two months and for most of it she didn't even know who we where. The doctors only gave her a 30% chance of survival. Every single day was traumatising and she had complications nearly everyday. I felt as though something or someone was trying to break me. Out of all the situations in my life I have to say that this was the most traumatising. I had worked so hard at protecting her but in this situation I had no control. She took about 2 years after her brain surgeries to even get off the lounge. After this incident she was never the same again and I had to deal with losing the Mother that I knew and loved. Again this is only a brief over view of everything that happened and thankfully she is now very well and happy.

I failed at school and found it very hard to develop strong friendships because I couldn't do all the things normal children and teenagers could do. Not getting into uni was also very traumatising and is something that I still find very hard to deal with. This triggered an extremely big depressive episode. I have only one true friend but she doesn't even know everything that has happened. I find it very hard to meet knew people and trust them enough to be able to develop a friendship.

I have moved to a different state and have been away from any traumatising experience for probably about a year now. In this time I have experienced rapid mood cycling and  feel as though I can't function without some sort of drama happening so I tend to try and create drama for myself and look for things that I have to worry about. I feel that I am now living out of a bad situation so I should be happy. This is not the case and I think I am finding it harder to live a normal life and I have never felt this out of control. I went to get a health care plan so I could see a psychologist because I know something is wrong and I just want to feel normal. When I saw a doctor about it explained some of the situation and  told her about the highs and lows that I was experiencing. She asked a number of  questions and got me to also do some online Questionnaires. I didn't understand what she was  getting at until she concluded that I might have a mood disorder that needed to be asessed by a  psychiatrist. She made  a call and I got an appointment a few days later. The  psychiatrist asked a number of questions and got me to fill out more questionaires. He diagnosed me with Bipolar disorder and after another appointment I started on Lamictal. I have only  been on the medication for two weeks but I have done extensive research on bipolar. The diagnoses fits 100% and it helped  me to make sense of the symptoms of my extreme highs and lows. I thought these symptoms where just apart of my personality and now knowing that I may be able to control them has brought me a lot of relief and a lot of hope for he future.

My dillema is that my psychologist doesn't think that I have bipolar. She thinks that my reactions are normal to what has happened to me in the past. She thinks that I may have traumatic stress syndrome and mood swings are just mimicking Bipolar. I am very confused and don't know who to believe. Both arguments make perfect sense and the more research I do on Bipolar the more I feel that it applies to me. But I don't want to be taking medication for something that in someones professional opinion that I don't have.  I Don't know what to please help??????

[adel_ezz]

I shall try my best to help if i can.

First i feel sorry of what you've gone through, it's hard especially at this early age. But you should be proud that you took the responsibility of your family, so you acted as if you are the person responsible of your family and not the opposite as it should have been usually.

About bipolarity, usually it can be hereditary, or due to a dysfunctional family, it can be already there and the traumatic events revealed it, in other words you were already predisposed to the disease. It usually appears at your age late adolescence not before. Again a father like yours might have had it you said he behaved in a criminal way towards your mother which is far unusual and especially in civilised countries, where people know well their rights. I heard well that aggression occurs in the west between married couples, but not the extent that they can murder each other. There is divorce as a choice. So the guy could have very well bipolarity disorder himself and when in MIXED STATES (a stage in BP) he can become very violent.

About the pdocs who saw you sure they are better than us here to judge the situation. psychologists can do mistakes but again pdocs usually rush with meds to prevent deterioration. However what is good at least in your case, is that the pdoc put you on lamictal, this is the SAFEST of all the drugs par excellence, you can use it as an "antidepressant" though it isn't, however it's better than using antidepressants alone which you always avoid to be taken alone.

One point you should investigate is to ask your mother whether your father had bipolarity or sort of, if he did, then this shortens the research about you having it or not. Because there is a chance that you got it from him.  

Again you should investigate the mood swings. Usually bipolarity from its definition passes by a phase of depression then hyperactivity, i don't see that you had any depressive episodes, which made me skeptical. Why don't you consider another opinion. Note that pdocs can do mistakes. Also bipolarity is becoming very popular nowadays, Oprah winfrey made a show on it, films,...it's the era. So you may have some extreme mood swings only.

There is a say "time is sufficient to show the truth" so give it some more time and be patient and everything will appear on surface.

As to reading about BP and feeling that it fits 100% with you, this happens to all of us. If i read about heart diseases, I shall find that it applies to me. This is called type A personality, the person who is doubtful, chronic worrier, someone who had a lot of bad experiences, you are bound to always wait and expect the worse. So i wouldn't rely on that

good luck and be calm and watch your mood and draw a chart of it on some daily basis then after a while you will recognize whether it fits really

[Jaquta]

If you are unsure then you could always seek a second opinion.

When someone speaks of highs and lows one of my first thoughts is of bipolar.
Reading what you have written I don't see bipolar (except for the stated mood swings).

Another diagnosis that you may like to consider is borderline personality disorder.  Mood swings can be a part of this disorder as the mood tends to be quite reactive.  Also you can feel fine one moment then lousy the next.
This ties in more with pstd and even complex-ptsd.  They may be worth investigating too.

I guess out of all this the main thing is to treat the symptoms you have.

[paranoid_cataclysm]

It is also possible for you to have both.  I can't say for sure which it sounds like you have since you didn't go into too great of detail about your symptoms.  The best thing to do would be try medicine they give you and if it helps you out then keep taking it.