depressed and possibly bipolar

[valba]

I have always been a deep person.  I look into things and think about things in great detail and can become overwhelmed and need to stop it before I go crazy.  Looking back over the last 5 years, I have been depressed and caught up in a world of unreality (going into my world) dwelling in the past.  I often, flet an unreal feeling - was I really alive?  With tiredness, numbness, worthlessness and so on.  I started to drink a lot again and self harm a bit, for a couple of years.  I have stopped this, but I then started drinking and taking pills, to hurt myself.  I have not been hospitalized or anything.  I have just done things at home and then telephoned a family member, crying and wanting to die.  I have been on prozac, first, which was great at first. However, I would get hyper on it and talk fast and become restless and manic. In the later, months of taking it, I was feeling more depressed and suicidal.  I went to my Doc. again and I am now on Zoloft.  This took a month or so to kick in, but now i feel better.  I do feel guilty, though thinking about all of the things I was feeling before and worry I have caused to my family.  I am scared, these anti-depressants will wear off too, and I fear at any time I will go off the rails again!  I work and have done so for the last 21 years.  I have two children, who I adore.  I do get anger and mood swings at times, but I am usually a easy going person.  However, I do get mad thoughts and say stupid things a lot.  I sometimes laugh and talk to myself, I often feel like doing silly things.  I can have a mixture of moods, all in, one day. I sometimes, have sleep problems - too much or not needing a lot.  I don't know if i have clinical depression or a bit of bipolar dipression?? Any, advice our there?  Please, talk.  Thanks, Valba

[whodunnit]

HI,

You make some quite contradictory statements in this post. First you describe a 5 year period of depression and "unreality" but later describe yourself as easygoing. You also said you were always a "deep person". Generally that means quite introspective, looking inward. This is not an easy going person's demeanour at all Valba.

I've no doubt you'd like to be easy going, who wouldn't?!!, but you aren't are you? It's important to be clear with yourself about what and how you are else you'll be fooling yourself all the time.

You also say in your title "Possibly bipolar" and then in the post say you have been manic. If you have been manic then you are definitely bipolar, that's the main criteria for such a diagnosis.

Clinical depression is not a type of depression. It means a case of depression being treated by a clinician, a doctor. So you are clinically depressed as you are being treated for depression. If you were not being treated by a doctor you would be depressed, not clinically as no doctor was dealing with it.

Your experience with Prozac is not uncommon in that sometimes an anti d can bring on a manic or hypomanic experience. Which then means you are bipolar as you've experienced it. It tells me you are probably not seeing your doc often enough or giving the doc enough information.

Mania or hypomania is usually controlled by a mood stabiliser. Lithium is the one I use, succesfully. But it is different for all and you need to talk it through with your doc.

Re your fears of Zoloft failing you. The future will tell if this is so or not. Your worrying about it now will achieve nothing escept making yourself miserable when you shouldn't be. Try to accept the benefits of the drug for now and worry about it when and if it fails. There are many more choices for later on if that happens. It happens to me regularly and I no longer worry about the problem as I know it's a matter of changing and trying again. And again. Never give up as recovery could be just another try away.

[ILADVOCATE]

Best to explain all this to your psychiatrist and they could decide what your diagnosis and what the right medications are for you. Keep a mood tracker here and bring the results to them and then they could see if you have bipolar and if so what form and from there see if they need to update your medication or adjust it.