I’m honestly so confused right now. This week I have been going really large feelings of happiness and large feelings of sadness. I’ve been going through these feelings back and forth a lot lately. I did some research on mental illness and I’m concerned I may be bipolar (I’m not self diagnosing myself btw)
I don’t really know how to handle my emotions and feel normal. Any advice?
Emotions can be very confusing. They’re never the same as we always change and encouter different life situations anyway. To find your answers, it can be tmepting to look online at potential diagnosis and such - even if it’s done in a thoughtful and careful way. I’d encourage you though to not dive into that too much. For a while, when I was younger, I would feel oftentimes that something was wrong but had no answer. So I would google a lot my “symptoms” and honestly I could relate to many different things. It’s mostly because unlike a very few personality disorders (like antisocial one that’s very specific), they’re all very large in terms of symptoms and manifestations of it. The only way to know is, really, to have in-depth conversation with a psychiatrist as they will be able to understand who you are, as a unique person, with a unique personality and holding a unique story. Even for someone who’s officially diagnosed for something, an official depiction of a mental illness will never entirely emphasize their own experience of it. There’s a matter of degree, intensity and frequency too for each aspect of them.
I would like to emphasize also that having emotions that change is not abnormal at all. However, if it’s starting to affect your life in ways you don’t want, basically if it’s preventing you to live and is interfering negatively, then it might be interesting for you to seek counseling if that is possible. Mental health is the matter of everyone. However, not everyone suffer from it. If there is this notion of pain and burden to you, then we can only encourage you to seek help on that matter. First to understand yourself better, and secondly to learn to cope with what’s affecting you negatively.
Emotions are not made to be handled. They’re not made to be controlled. They just happen to be part of our daily experiences. What we can learn to control though is how we react to them, whether it’s through therapy, psychological tools (CBT and DBT being some common examples of how to"reframe" our thoughts and beliefs regarding specific feelings and situations), but also through personal habits like, for some people, meditation and things like that (not for everyone though).
What would being “normal” mean to you? How would you describe it?
Hi @OMAMfan
Sometimes bipolar can be confused with borderline personality disorder. The difference is that the sever highs and lows with BPD can be hourly thru out the day, but for bipolar those ups and downs last way longer, sometimes weeks for the downs and days for the ups.
What are your mood swings like?
From: Lisalovesfeathers (Discord)
Hi Friend, Thank you for your post. It can be scary when you get this odd range of emotions can’t it, one day you feel like you can rule the world, the next you don’t want to get out of bed. There are so many reasons that could be happening to you from your age (I don’t know your age) hormones to yes a mental illness but its good that you recognise these differences. As its only been a week it might be an idea to keep a record for a couple of weeks of exactly how you are feeling, write it all down and if nothing changes make an appointment to see your Doctor and you will have something to show them because they will ask you questions about how you feel, when, how intense etc etc and you will have it all written down. Try not to worry, sometimes we just go through blips and they pass. Feel free to stay in touch and you can talk to us anytime. Much Love Lisa
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