What's going on ? am i crazier than i thought ?

[stormbear]

Hello , i was diagnosed with bi polar type 2 ,avoidant personality disorder and social phobia (  yes a  tripple whammy ), as you could imagine they all affect me in many of ways and make life very difficult . But theres one thing that i'm puzzled   about, i believe i have a sixth sense all the other symtoms are to be expected but this freaks me out for example, i could be sitting alone by my self at home and i feel a presence in the room and no  one else is around it lasts for little while too i also sense that theres something or some one outside my window and i believe something is trying to communicate with me when these things happen i'm terrified to the point where i'm almost shaking i guess i'm just wondering if other people with bi polar or bi polar 2 experience this because i'm preety sure it's got nothing to do with Avpd or social phobia  ,what is it called ?and it's been happening since i was a kid could it be a different illness .

[Peter Forster]

The answer probably depends on how often this happens and how much it affects your life.

Transient and brief experiences of this kind are very common and would not, in my view, qualify for any diagnosis.

More disturbing or frequent experiences can co-occur with bipolar, although they are not typical of bipolar and they raise the question of whether the diagnosis of bipolar should be changed to schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type.

A pattern of unusual thoughts, trouble with social relationships, and somewhat eccentric behavior can occur in schizotypal personality disorder.

Having said all of that, I should acknowledge that there are some symptom patterns that don't fit terribly well into our existing diagnostic scheme. When I was getting started as a psychiatrist I worked for a year with a young man who was smart, creative and a pleasure to know, who seemed to clearly have bipolar type 2 (mild manic episodes and recurrent depressions) but who also talked to the trees. Technically he should have been re-diagnosed as bipolar type 1 or perhaps schizoaffective disorder bipolar type. But from a treatment standpoint that didn't make any sense. And the trees were helpful... they provided him with good advice and insight. So I stuck with the diagnosis of bipolar 2 and kept an eye on the tree conversations to make sure that they didn't get to be problematic, which they never did.

[stormbear]

I was put on disability 3 years ago because it was affecting me so badly since that time i've lost all my friends and social contacts except for my mother and brother but the only time i felt comfortable socialising was if i had some alcohol even then i still didn't feel comfortable .Also  when i'm in public which is not very often my anxiety levels go through the roof and i tend to walk really fast to get away from people because every one is staring at me and i think they are talking about me also when i hear people laugh i think they are laughing at me i also think people are talking about me on the radio some times even when i'm watching tv i can feel nervous uneasy and irritabe it's like i'm in 100% turmoil and never at peace .I also think i've experienced   ultra rapid cycling roughly 4-5 times in 1 day several times before and it was preety frightening  i didn't know what was happening to me than i ended up in a severe depression for months and can barely function and move from the couch .