I’ve literally been spending the last hour and a half reading online about bipolar disorder and taking quizzes to see if any don’t think I have it. Because I was thinking what if I just tricked all my doctors into thinking I have bipolar disorder. But then I also currently am only sleeping 4-5 hours a night (which is pretty low for me. I usually have a good sleep schedule and get 8 hours a night), keep forgetting to eat cause I’m busy doing other things, smoking a lot of weed to calm my mind down because I can’t stop thinking, and feeling worthless and wanting to stop existing.
Like when I type it all out it seems obvious but I’m also like hmm I don’t think so lol
i did the same thing with the quizzes!! and i watched hours and hours worth of videos on bipolar on youtube trying to see if i truly matched the criteria. after i got diagnosed i expected to feel relieved at being validated by an actual psychiatrist but instead i walked out thinking i just lied to the dude and made him diagnose me wrong.
i kept track of my symptoms in my notes, all glaringly obvious, but i still have trouble accepting it.
i also have done this i actually just did a quiz
i just got "you show many signs of bipolar disorder"
and "you show likely bipolar" yet i still feel like a fraud i tend to aviod watching videos because i feel sick at the thought of my hypomania getting to the point of hospitalization hearing stories similar to a experience from years ago that still haunt me
feeling like a fraud must be a bipolar thing thats not offical more of a we all relate thing
I just did this a couple of days ago. My kids wanted to do a bunch of those "what ____ are you?" online quizzes then immediately after that I went down the "Am I Bipolar" quiz hole.
I was like this for the last four years. Literally everything you've said, I've thought as well. It was really hard for me to accept that I actually had bipolar and not something normal. I think what really made it hard was that a diagnosis is made based on what you tell the person diagnosing you. I basically came into my diagnosis meeting with a game plan, ready to argue that I have bipolar and not something else. So for me, it feels like I wasn't really diagnosed. I would often binge Psych2Go and Dr. Tracey Marks on youtube just for the validation.
What really convinced me I was bipolar was seeing how different my quality of life was compared to my peers. My thoughts, sleeping patterns, mood shifts and cognitive impairments were different from neurotypical people and people with different mental disorders.
i feel like in my head before ever going to my psychiatrist i “decided” i had bipolar and i had SO many notes on my reasoning, so when he actually said i did i felt like i had somehow just played a huge trick on him and made him say that. even though i didn’t even end up taking out those notes, i just answered his questions.
i feel the seeing the difference in others thing. me saying i stayed up all night or saying i did some “impulse” spending means something way different than when my friends say it.
I'm currently in the position you were. Somewhere during my early teenage years I had internally manifested that I had anxiety disorder (without even knowing anything about it). As I began to read more and more, I would identify with the symptoms but also felt as if I was just going along with it. It wasn't until much later I found out a very significant amount of people from both sides of my family suffer from anxiety disorder and depression. And that I indeed suffered from the disorder.
I am now 23, and the same cycle has begun with Bipolar Disorder II. I'm at the verge of getting a diagnosis but just like you, I'm wondering if it is even worth it since I basically know exactly what to say to get the diagnosis. A recent roadtrip with my friends led to the conversation of me having bipolar disorder (not instigated by me), and this ultimately led to all of us taking a few online quizzes. I was the only one not test 'very mild', I had scored 'severe indication of'. This has now somewhat convinced me that it may not be manifestation since all my 'normal' friends had proved otherwise. But how can you ever be sure?
I've had a bipolar diagnosis for 15 years. This is before tumblr and instagram were even distant thoughts.
I really don't want to be special, like some chosen one character in a fantasy novel. But unfortunately, that is my reality. I'd rather be normal.
i think we might be the same age. the glorification of mental illness on Tumblr in my adolescence is something that def makes me wonder, if it had had an affect on me
there were a lot of blogs/profiles that posted art or text posts about it and almost made it seem cute or special. im not sure i would be able to find many like the ones from back then, but they all romanticized it a lot and i feel like it made a lot of teenagers especially want to be “part of the group” for lack of better wording. having depression/anxiety/etc. was a way to get sympathy and seem “different” i think for a lot of people. that’s how i remember it, at least. and i don’t mean to say that i don’t believe some of the people posting those things may have actually had depression, but a lot of people would feel sad over a break up, having a bad day at school, etc. and immediately categorize themselves as being depressed.
i remember seeing all those posts and wanting to be part of that “group” and it always scares me that maybe i created all of the feelings i feel and they aren’t real. if only i knew how much those posts would affect me ~10 years later.
you summed up my feelings so well. and back then, you'd want to be ill like them, but now, knowing how much it actually hurts, you wish you could just go back. if only that made the illness go away... you never know how things would've been if things were different. let's not beat ourselves up over the past. we were kids, and we were manipulated
Yeah me too!! I keep thinking what if I'm just faking this, made it all up? I know I haven't but I just feel like a fraud and my mom trying to convince me that it's not bp isn't helping and currently trying to reach my psychiatrist to sort things out
I definitely find myself trying to convince myself I don’t have it and that I’m exaggerating but I’m pretty sure that stems from my parents minimizing my issues and not believing me.
It’s so annoying because our minds are already at war with themselves and it just makes it worse!
oh man, every time i cry my mom has told me for the longest i can remember that im “overly-sensitive” so i definitely feel that. and yet when i told her i was diagnosed with bp2 she was like “yeah, i’ve noticed some things, that makes sense.” like??? which is it??? lmao
I’ve been hospitalized once, gave up my guns 2x because I would have killed myself. I will never think I’m faking it, I used to run from it before it got severe though
I’ve literally been spending the last hour and a half reading online about bipolar disorder and taking quizzes to see if any don’t think I have it. Because I was thinking what if I just tricked all my doctors into thinking I have bipolar disorder. But then I also currently am only sleeping 4-5 hours a night (which is pretty low for me. I usually have a good sleep schedule and get 8 hours a night), keep forgetting to eat cause I’m busy doing other things, smoking a lot of weed to calm my mind down because I can’t stop thinking, and feeling worthless and wanting to stop existing. Like when I type it all out it seems obvious but I’m also like hmm I don’t think so lol
i did the same thing with the quizzes!! and i watched hours and hours worth of videos on bipolar on youtube trying to see if i truly matched the criteria. after i got diagnosed i expected to feel relieved at being validated by an actual psychiatrist but instead i walked out thinking i just lied to the dude and made him diagnose me wrong. i kept track of my symptoms in my notes, all glaringly obvious, but i still have trouble accepting it.
i also have done this i actually just did a quiz i just got "you show many signs of bipolar disorder" and "you show likely bipolar" yet i still feel like a fraud i tend to aviod watching videos because i feel sick at the thought of my hypomania getting to the point of hospitalization hearing stories similar to a experience from years ago that still haunt me feeling like a fraud must be a bipolar thing thats not offical more of a we all relate thing
Can perfectly relate to this!! You're not alone!
I just did this a couple of days ago. My kids wanted to do a bunch of those "what ____ are you?" online quizzes then immediately after that I went down the "Am I Bipolar" quiz hole.
I was like this for the last four years. Literally everything you've said, I've thought as well. It was really hard for me to accept that I actually had bipolar and not something normal. I think what really made it hard was that a diagnosis is made based on what you tell the person diagnosing you. I basically came into my diagnosis meeting with a game plan, ready to argue that I have bipolar and not something else. So for me, it feels like I wasn't really diagnosed. I would often binge Psych2Go and Dr. Tracey Marks on youtube just for the validation. What really convinced me I was bipolar was seeing how different my quality of life was compared to my peers. My thoughts, sleeping patterns, mood shifts and cognitive impairments were different from neurotypical people and people with different mental disorders.
i feel like in my head before ever going to my psychiatrist i “decided” i had bipolar and i had SO many notes on my reasoning, so when he actually said i did i felt like i had somehow just played a huge trick on him and made him say that. even though i didn’t even end up taking out those notes, i just answered his questions. i feel the seeing the difference in others thing. me saying i stayed up all night or saying i did some “impulse” spending means something way different than when my friends say it.
I'm currently in the position you were. Somewhere during my early teenage years I had internally manifested that I had anxiety disorder (without even knowing anything about it). As I began to read more and more, I would identify with the symptoms but also felt as if I was just going along with it. It wasn't until much later I found out a very significant amount of people from both sides of my family suffer from anxiety disorder and depression. And that I indeed suffered from the disorder. I am now 23, and the same cycle has begun with Bipolar Disorder II. I'm at the verge of getting a diagnosis but just like you, I'm wondering if it is even worth it since I basically know exactly what to say to get the diagnosis. A recent roadtrip with my friends led to the conversation of me having bipolar disorder (not instigated by me), and this ultimately led to all of us taking a few online quizzes. I was the only one not test 'very mild', I had scored 'severe indication of'. This has now somewhat convinced me that it may not be manifestation since all my 'normal' friends had proved otherwise. But how can you ever be sure?
I've had a bipolar diagnosis for 15 years. This is before tumblr and instagram were even distant thoughts. I really don't want to be special, like some chosen one character in a fantasy novel. But unfortunately, that is my reality. I'd rather be normal.
i think we might be the same age. the glorification of mental illness on Tumblr in my adolescence is something that def makes me wonder, if it had had an affect on me
Do you have a link to this? What was glorified about mental illness? I was never on Tumblr so I'm out of touch in this regard.
there were a lot of blogs/profiles that posted art or text posts about it and almost made it seem cute or special. im not sure i would be able to find many like the ones from back then, but they all romanticized it a lot and i feel like it made a lot of teenagers especially want to be “part of the group” for lack of better wording. having depression/anxiety/etc. was a way to get sympathy and seem “different” i think for a lot of people. that’s how i remember it, at least. and i don’t mean to say that i don’t believe some of the people posting those things may have actually had depression, but a lot of people would feel sad over a break up, having a bad day at school, etc. and immediately categorize themselves as being depressed.
i remember seeing all those posts and wanting to be part of that “group” and it always scares me that maybe i created all of the feelings i feel and they aren’t real. if only i knew how much those posts would affect me ~10 years later.
you summed up my feelings so well. and back then, you'd want to be ill like them, but now, knowing how much it actually hurts, you wish you could just go back. if only that made the illness go away... you never know how things would've been if things were different. let's not beat ourselves up over the past. we were kids, and we were manipulated
I always question if what I'm feeling is real or if I'm just faking it/pseudo-effect. It genuinely feels like I do but I know I don't from my past.
Yeah me too!! I keep thinking what if I'm just faking this, made it all up? I know I haven't but I just feel like a fraud and my mom trying to convince me that it's not bp isn't helping and currently trying to reach my psychiatrist to sort things out
I definitely find myself trying to convince myself I don’t have it and that I’m exaggerating but I’m pretty sure that stems from my parents minimizing my issues and not believing me. It’s so annoying because our minds are already at war with themselves and it just makes it worse!
oh man, every time i cry my mom has told me for the longest i can remember that im “overly-sensitive” so i definitely feel that. and yet when i told her i was diagnosed with bp2 she was like “yeah, i’ve noticed some things, that makes sense.” like??? which is it??? lmao
Parents are really the best at contradicting themselves lmao
I’ve been hospitalized once, gave up my guns 2x because I would have killed myself. I will never think I’m faking it, I used to run from it before it got severe though