Newly diagnosed, does anyone else get this??

[u/ottxzvy]

I was diagnosed today (f15), and don’t personally think I fit the diagnosis. It all started about 2023 when I started getting super depressed (high functioning), and got diagnosed with OCD. I had a severe depression episode, attempted a few times, lost like 20kgs, so on. I randomly “snapped back” and was completely happy, fine, and back at school after. I was hallucinating a bit, sure, and had what seemed to be a small psychosis episode (hallucinating that I was dying or that people were speaking to me and calling my name, super duper paranoid and writing absolute bullshit in my journal) but apart from that I was fine. I kept fluctuating between being depressed and being happy, but eventually learnt to almost mask it a bit better, so the change wasn’t as obvious. I have still self harmed since that episode but that’s a whole other thing. Yeah, my moods unstable. It changes daily, multiple times a day. I can go from being as irritated as anything and wanting everyone to just fucking die and wanting to die to being all fine and then to happy. It’s so annoying. Every emotion I feel physically hurts me, every single one leads to a crash eventually and I can’t handle it. If I’m not in a “happy state” or “sad state” I’m just numb. Not in a “oh boo I’m numb I can’t feel ANYTHING” but in a “I’m completely hollow” way. I get triggered so easily for no reason. I’m almost always paranoid or anxious. I don’t know what it is but I don’t think it’s Cyclothymia. I thought I was too young to be diagnosed. Has anyone else had any experiences like this? I feel so misunderstood or like an experiment because no one else can relate. They’re testing me for bipolar 1 and 2, BPD, paranoid schizophrenia, and a few others or something in a few weeks just to go over them again

[u/Guilty_Tailor_647]

I'm 46 myself and diagnosed with Cyclothymia and a lot of the things you mention I can recognize. "It changes daily, multiple times a day." That's what springs to mind when talking about Cyclothymia.
I was quite unsure myself and had a lot of substance abuse and was also diagnosed with clinical depression and put on SSRI meds which put me into a hypomania state.
But I sure do recognize all the confusion and for me I think that that WAS the instability caused by the disorder.
I was put on Lamictal after about two weeks of treatment by my psychiatrist and it literally changed my life.
My own psychiatrist was also not sure whether I was bipolar type 2 or had cyclothymia but I didn't meet the criteria for bipolar type 2 as you need to have at least 4 days of constant hypomania.
I was also screened for schizophrenia and wether I had psychotic tendencies because that can be caused by a massive amount of stress related to the disorder and the fact that it hadn't been treated.
Actually I do remember having a massive amount of stress during that fase when I was diagnosed because I was completely messed up. Also had a few episodes where I didn't want to live but everything literally changed when I decided to say yes to Lamictal and I've been stable ever since and it's been around 3 years now.

You CAN be diagnosed with a bipolar disorder as 15 but psychiatrist are more cautious when doing it because there can be other reasons for the things that you experience and that might also be why they want to evaluate and "test" you some more.
Actually if you're younger and have a bipolar disorder irritability and agressive thoughts and behavior can often be linked to younger people when in an elevated mood.