life help: whats the difference between bipolar disorder and teenage mood swings? - Help.com

OK…whenever you are depressed enough to be thinking of suicide, you need to see a professional. You’re right, it might be nothing more than teenage hormones, but it is also better to be safe than sorry. So you depression is bad enough to make you want to kill yourself? Do you stop eating… does it keep you from sleeping or do you sleep in irregular patterns? Does the depression interrupt your normal activities? How long do your different moods last normally?

Unfortunately Bipolar disorder is something far more severe than this. When a person is manic they’re not necessarily happy, they’re full of themselves, think they can do anything, and easily agitated if disagreed with. And the depression it’s a physically consuming state of lethargy at times. These single moods can last for years.

What you’re going through I can’t say is normal, I’d need more information. But if you’re aware of what’s going on, I’d like to say you can control it. Try and if things get progressively worse seek help.

Only a mental health professional can diagnose bipolar disorder. if you are worried that you are bipolar, tell your parents or someone you trust about your concerns. I wish I could say something that would help you automatically, but I really don’t think this is the kind of thing that can be dealt with on a help forum. a psychiatrist or psychologist will do an initial interview and will know whether or not you manic depressive.

Well perhaps you could talk to a school counselor and they could put you in touch with someone who is in position to evaluate you. I agree with others in that Bipolar moods generally cycle for days, weeks or months in one “mood” at a time. Tough to say what you are feeling is precisely, but school might help or if you speak to a crisis line in your area they should be able to point you to some help.

hi,

is there a counselor at school? does your school have a nurse? can you tell a grandparent? a friend’s parent?

you need to tell someone who will listen and help you to get screened by a doctor or someone else who is trained to recognize mental health disorders.

bipolar mood swings can come very quickly in teen, they are called mixed episodes and can happen even in the same day.

I agree with estragon7 though… here’s what the DSM say’s; “There are six separate criteria sets for Bipolar I Disorder: Single Manic Episode, Most Recent Episode Hypomanic, Most Recent Episode Manic, Most Recent Episode Mixed, Most Recent Episode Depressed, and Most Recent Episode Unspecified.” Best to leave diagnosis to a professional. It also however speaks to a high rate of heredity / genetics.

Bottom line you need to see a psychiatrist for an evaluation. If you have no money for this, check your area for Universities that offer a Masters degree in psychology. These schools all have residency programs where you can be seen by a student (supervised by a licensed professional) for either free or at least a sliding scale.

I’m sorry. I never thought about it being summer vacation.

Again, I wish there was something I could say that would be of immediate help, but it’s just not possible.

I don’t know what resources are available in your area. please try to talk to your mother and make it clear how important this is for you. if this is not resolved, as soon as school starts tell a counselor, a nurse, a teacher. don’t be embarrassed. all that matters is that someone direct you to the proper help. and if anything happens that makes you think you might try to hurt yourself again, call 911 immediately.

Hugs you and kisses your cheek. Sweetie, you sound like me! No, I do not think you are bi-polar. Bi-polar is more of a constant on and off thing THROUGHOUT the day and continues for many days in a row.

I think you will find that you are “better suited” under something called “dsythmia.” You sound like that you have your “good” and “bad” days (like me. That is what dsythmia is. Some days or most days, you feel like you are just doing what you need to do to “get by.” You go into weird funky moods and cry for no reason.

Five out of the six symptoms listed for dsythmia I KNOW i have, its just one of the symptoms Ithat I am unsure about. If you have 4 or more of the symptoms, you most likely have dsythmia. Wut is dsythmia? It is a disorder that is a “branch” off of depression/variation of depression. Trying to diagnose depression is hard because there are sooo many variations of it hun. Depression depression is when you literally cannot get up out of bed and just sit there. Depression interupts life COMPLETELY! But, you should not listen to just me, you should get PROFESSIONAL medical advice, like I did! ;o) Any questions I am GLAD to help!

I was diagnosed with depression and then bipolar disorder in my late 20’s and in retrospect it was something I had from my early teens, so definitely you could have either. When you wrote “i get in these moods where its almost like i cant talk even if i want to or it feels like im moving in slow motion, and everyone else around me is moving so fast,” it just threw me back to how I felt at your age and it was such a feeling of just being a disconnected ghost of a person.

It is really important that you get help, and as someone else posted the fact that your mum suffers from depression means there is a greater chance you will too. Being bipolar (especially what is categorized as Bipolar II), doesn’t mean you have to have huge manic episodes, they are more often ‘hypomanic’, which can actually be really useful if you have a lot of stuff to get done (!) but people who are BP II also tend to get more depression, especially ‘Atypical’ Depression which is what you seem to describe when you need to sleep for long periods and just feel leaden all the time.

There may very well be a teen service in your area that you can visit for free. Where do you live? If you want to send me a message I can try and find something for you - I’m a medical researcher so looking up stuff is what I do all day.

wow… Bam… what an excellent resource for you. Thank you els, your great!