I am female and almost 21 years old. I can
remember being sad as a little girl for a
very long time. I was bullied in school in
almost all the years, and sexually abused
from ages 6-11. It was when I was 16 that
was diagnosed with depression and took
mediacation for it. It worked, but then at
the age of eighteen I slipped back into
it, only that time the medication didn't
work. Since then my moods have been up and
down. For a while I will be feeling quite
normal, then suddenly slip into an unhappy
mood for some weeks. Nothing triggers
these mood changes, and I cannot predict
when they are going to change. It seemed
to go back and forth between feeling
normal then sad, until last year when I
had this really happy energetic phase. I
had never felt so happy in my life.
Everything really stood out to me, like
colours became much more vivid, I became
sensitive to sounds and easily distracted
by them. This soon became a normal mood
lasting for a while, then came the unhappy
mood. When in the unhappy mood, I feel
lonely and so annoyed at everything. I get
thoughts of death out of the blue for no
reason, I find it hard to concentrate of
things I am doing and become very
forgetful.
At this moment, I am in my happy stage
(before that it was normal mood, then
before that it was unhappy mood) I have
never felt so excited in my life. People
tell me I am talking too loud, and too
much. I feel like I have to talk, and I am
so full of energy and electricity it
sometimes feels like I might explode.
When I am talking to people, they get
annoyed, and I tend to jump from one thing
to the next. When I go to bed, I am either
not tired at all, or my mind is racing
which makes it hard for me to get to
sleep. I got hardly any sleep the other
night, yet woke up so refreshed and full
of energy and excitement. When my mind is
racing, its like lots of different things
jumping from one subject to another. I
will be thinking about what I am going to
do tomorrow, then suddenly in comes
another thought, then maybe a word from a
song, then images of things, then a couple
of words from a sentance of a conversation
etc etc. It just keep whizzing around and
around in my head. There was one occasion
when I heard a screaming in my head at
night.
This is the stage that I like, because I
feel so happy and full of energy, I find
it easier to get on with my artwork and
come up with new ideas for it. But I know
that this can't last forever, I know that
sooner or later I am going to slip back
into my unhappy stage, and I really don't
want to.
What could be the reason for my mood
changes, especially since nothing is
causing them to change? I see a
psychiatrist every three months, who
doesn't seem to do anything, but ask the
same old questions and not come up with
any diagnosis. A while back, I was tested
for schizophrenia and other disorders, but
they just said I had agrophobia/social
phobia. Some of the questions I was asked
back then though(which I said no to alot
of them), I have actually been
experiencing recently which are things
like the racing thoughts etc. Could I be
developing some other kind of illness
besides the agrophobia/socail phobia?
I am going to see my phsychiatrist again
next month, and will tell her about my
spontanoius mood changes and the symptoms
that go along with each mood. I just
wanted to see if I could get some answers
from here also. I just want to finally get
a diagnosis so that I actually know what I
am dealing with. Like I said, the mood
changes just come on for no reason, and
nothing at all causes them. I am not sure
of any mental disorders in my family,
although my dad told me a while ago he
sometimes suffers with depression.
Can anyone help, thanks?
