Yeah I've read up on it and it's one of my default "jokes" to new friends("dude! you've no idea how bipolar I am")--only they don't know that I am not really joking.
Still I have a lot of stigma about officially getting tested for this stuff.
Still I have a lot of stigma about officially getting tested for this stuff.
I've had similar problems with focus and discipline. I've tried alleviating them by exercising (working out with the ROTC at 6 AM), eating well, making important commitments, doing Buddhist mindfulness exercises, listening to Eckhart Tolle, writing myself a contract that I signed in front of my friends/classmates, trying to create a startup with some good friends, and many other things that typically ended in (painful) failure. I had successes here and there, but the mental effort required to hang on until the end was often huge.
I have the tendency to make commitments and create relationships when I'm in one of my highs, and then proceed to fumble them when I inevitably reach a low. I dropped 2 semesters of college before I looked for professional help.
I started by seeing a therapist, not an MD. I found the sessions beneficial and they helped me get through a rough patch, but after two months things weren't really coming together. At my therapist's discretion, I saw a psychiatrist. I told him my situation in it's entirety. I didn't let myself think about trying to save face. I told him the grittiest details if I thought they were important for him to understand what I was going through.
I definitely had strong misgivings before making that step. For me the worst was "What if everyone goes through the same difficulties, and I'm just weak and cowardly?" However, my track record clearly showed I needed help. It was mostly a matter of allowing myself to be humble enough to accept it.
After only a week and a half of taking Seroquel, it's hard for me to say how it's going and where it's going to take me. Early though it is, I've noticed a change for the better. I like to think it's a temporary solution, like the way that you would put a tarp over a hole in your roof before you actually get it repaired.
Psychiatrists and therapists see people for things like this all the time. It's familiar territory for them. I could have saved myself a lot of heartache if I'd gotten professional help sooner.
Best of luck
- Another dude
If its just a case of having trouble doing the initial jumpstart of getting started looking into stuff, ask one of your friends who you're close to and comfortable being open with to help you get the ball rolling on looking into such, or just make yourself commit to at least making a appointment with your general practitioner.
(getting around irrational social anxiety issues which can act as obstacles is hard, and apparently the best adaptive approach is to reframe the ominous task by breaking it into lots and lots of smaller steps, and forcing yourself to only think about the current step and never about later steps, rinse and repeat)
The thing is, bipolar disorder can get worse over time. It's not uncommon for people to get help only way after things have gone to shit. Why waste time? If it's really BPD, it's not just gonna go away. Might as well go to a doctor now -- at least that way you can be fully informed.