bipolar or depressed ?

I am a 25 year old college student with an IQ in excess of 150. When I was one I had a fall from stairs and bled from my ear. I was hospitalized for several weeks. After I came home, I couldn't talk for another year.

I have always felt like I am a different person and that something is wrong with me. My family has always treated me like I'm dumb or I don't know things the way they do. I honestly don't blame them.

A year ago I fell in love with a girl and she moved from Florida to be with me in California after 6 months, but we lasted only 5 months together. According to her, I was immature and I wasn't ready for a relationship. She also asked me to see a psychologist.

My family wouldn't consent to taking me to a psychologist. I just immigrated to the United States so I really don't have any means of finding one on my own. What I want to know is for someone to tell me if they sense that I might have a serious disorder. If I do, then I'll try to make my family take me to a psychologist. Otherwise, I'll try to just go on like this for as long as I can.

Here's some of my problems:

1. I cannot concentrate. I cannot finish ANYTHING that I start unless not doing so will get me sacked or make me fail a class. I am a really gifted person so even though I have skipped studying the books and doing homeworks for forever, if I attend class for one day, I'll know enough to get a B or an A-. But it gets worse, I cannot WORK. I just cannot. People deem me unreliable. I've never held a job where people haven't liked me personally but hated the way I cannot complete a task. Whenever I try to start doing something I just have to get up and pace and not do it. It's something that I cannot help. Until its either too late or I do it sloppily at the last minute.

2. I have to pace around. I have a ritual whereby everyday, I have to turn on music and walk around in circles listening to the same song and lipsyncing over and over again for as long as two hours. It makes me feel better and takes the stress off of me. Even when I'm at a gathering, I have to get out and pace around a little bit. IF I lose my legs, I'm gonna go crazy.

3. I feel tired everyday and my body aches for no reason. I have to sleep for AT LEAST 10 hours every night otherwise I will be more tired than an NFL player after a game. NO matter WHAT I do. Even if I've sat at home and watched TV, when I wake up the next day, my body aches.

4. I frequently make plans and NEVER execute them. They feel so rosy. At least once I'm thinking of them, but then I slowly reject them. Some of the plans include, running for president later in life, writing a GREAT book, joining the foreign service, opening a free university in Africa. I make a plan like that at least once a week. Once i make the plan I spend the next few days just imagining it and can't sleep at night and then I forget about it altogether and move on to the next plan. I have been doing it for as long as I can remember.

5. I'm lazy. At least this is what everyone says and this is what I believe in. I do wana do things but even though I make time and sit down to do it, I can't. I just can't. There is no answer to be honest. I haven't gotten a driver's license because every time I sit down to read the handbook, the words just fly past me. I cannot read. I cannot write. I just can't do things like that. It has become increasingly more difficult. All I can do is concentrate on watching a tv show or a movie, sometimes several back to back or I feel very anxious and stressed.

6. I feel extremely hopeless. I feel like I'm a failure. This is besides the fact that I've been an editor of a newspaper. I've had at least two scholarships - one through the state department's leadership program and the other to shadow an MP in the UK for two weeks in the election there. I just feel like I'm a total under-achiever. The dean of the political science department at my school wanted to publish a book containing the articles of prominent students from the school. He wanted me to not only write an article but edit the journal. My laziness killed the project. I WANTEED to do it. I just couldn't do it.

7. I feel depressed. Every little bad thing that has every happened to me ALWAYS has to come back and haunt me at night almost every night. I feel like a total loser. I feel like I'm better off dead. I have looked up suicide methods online and I have even chosen a method as the most efficient.

8. I have mood elevations where I feel like everything is great and then spiral back into anxiety and depression the moment even the smallest bad thing happens. If anyone criticizes me or questions my attitude or ANYTHING that's negative, I ponder about it for days and plan revenge! I'm easily provoked.

9. I am scared or freightened. I have to make sure I don't touch anyone I don't know when I'm walking I feel like they're going to attack me. I HATE being in a car or on a plane because I just feel like it will crash. Part of the reason I don't want to drive is because I feel like I might kill someone or get caught up in a horrible accident. I just can't do it.

10. I cannot see authority. From bosses, professors, parents and loved ones. I have to rebel against anyone who even SLIGHTLY doesn't support my point. I won't let ANYONE talk but me. I'm right and that's it. People can't have a two-sided conversation with me so some just give up.

11. I feel like I'm trapped. I feel like I just need to go somewhere where no one knows me. I cannot be where I am. I can't keep a job or a school or even friends. I have leave things and find new things because I feel stuck.

12. I have weird sexual thoughts that haunt me. They include ones concerning friends or even family and I'm just ashamed and embarassed about them at ALL times.

13. I feel guilty for everything. I feel like I'm the root cause of all the problems everyone's facing.



There are several other things, but I don't want to bore or overwhelm anyone reading this.

I have been like this for as long as I can remember. I've been coping with it all my life by simply pretending. Pretending that I am happy or pretending that things are great or that I am normal because I fear rejection. It's become so much part of my life that my family - most of them - flatly refuse to believe anything psychological could be the reason.

All I want to know is if you think that it's serious enough that I need medications for these things. If they really are making me kill myself. If they are just mild and I could do it without help, I'll forget about this.

Thanks