Am I bipolar?

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In the past few days it's begun to occur to me that what I thought was some unidentified form of depression might be a bipolar disorder. Can anyone recommend a good online test to screen me?

Im thinking i might be a little bi polar too.

From what I know (my father has it, and I've done research on the subject), I don't think you can be "a little" bipolar. BUT there is such a thing as Bipolar 2 apparently. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipolar_2 I spent an entire year not able to make up my mind if I was bipolar or not and agonizing over it. Bipolar 2 fits me completely. You should look at it, even if it's just to rule it out.

So far I know the MDQ is the best:
http://www.blackdoginstitute.org.au/pub ... f-test.cfm

But there are also others.
Keep track of your mood, how you feel.

I've also been wondering if I'm bipolar but it's impossible for me to remember how I felt earlier on any particular day. Let alone the day before.

Took it, scored 30, will look around more. And do more research.

Is it an option for you to talk with a shrink about it?
I have moodproblems since many years, propably bipolar II. I thought for years I could cope with it by myself. I was soooo wrong. Big mistake!

With bipolar it is the best to treat early.

Shuddered reading that. I had a horror story with ADD meds and being on meds is the last thing I'd ever want to do.

EDIT: Huh. Cyclothymia seems to be the closest to an accurate description of me, within bipolar stuff.

EDIT 2: WTF NO ONE KNOWS EXACTLY HOW LITHIUM WORKS?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

I was literally about to suggest cyclothymia.

The best way to get some idea of what might be causing your symptoms is to read the related sections of the current DSM (which you can find online using search engines) and decide if you fit the criteria. The only way to really know for sure though is a see a psychiatrist and get a professional diagnosis.

If you are bipolar, you will need to be on meds. Bipolar is a serious illness. On average it takes a person with bipolar 5 years of experimenting with different drugs before finding the right combination to minimize their symptoms. After 2 years (I was lucky to have a very good psychiatrist who also is a bipolar specialist) I am fairly confident with my current medication. Currently I am on 5 different drugs including a mood stabilizer (valproate: the vast majority of bipolar people are either put on valproate or lithium as they have the best track record) and an anti-psychotic (seroquel). This is fairly normal.

If you are bipolar, and you have taken stimulant type drugs for ADHD, you would have had a negative reaction to them as they would have triggered a manic episode.

Shuddering reading this again. I might need help. I might not be able to sleep tonight. I'll push past the emotional barriers to compare the stimulants with distinctly manic phases, in a bit. Is stress a trigger that causes more distinct cycling? Now I can't stop shuddering. The idea of meds... I have to come to terms with this somehow? I almost wish I still believed in a deity so I could pray. What do meds do exactly? Do they keep you somewhere between manic and depressive? Can't stop shuddering thinking about this.
EDIT: I'm not yet fourteen, and I only started thinking this possibility in the past few days.... I just keep shuddering I have to stop somehow.

Yes, stress can induce mood episodes or more distinct cycling. Meds basically prevent you from having manic or depressive episodes if you're someone who's normal some of the time, and some of the time is depressive or manic, or if you are someone like myself who is constantly cycling up and down with no in-between meds help to reduce the extremes and sort of change the pattern from sharp spikes up and down (extreme highs to extreme lows that are very debilitating) to more of a gentle wave which allows you to function better in your daily life.

I won't lie to you and say that meds don't have side effects, or that you will react well to every med you try, but meds ultimately will help you much more than they will discomfort you. They will make you feel less depressed and less manic and more in control of yourself. There is no need to panic about taking meds; if you are seeing a proper doctor they will monitor the process and you will be fine.

Of course, all this is assuming you even have bipolar in the first place, which we don't even know.

I sincerely hope I don't... I like the creativity. And if I am, I've never had serious problems with mania, or very serious ones with depressiveness... It just sounds right. I started having more depressive stuff this fall from household/family stress, that's why I started looking this up I was curious as to what the depression was called. Oh and how fast can cyclothymia cycle? And has anyone ever felt like they were going depressive and pulled out of it?

EDIT: probably not entirely from household/family stress, that was a major contributor though.

Lots of people with bipolar do mood-tracking. Develop a mood scale from -10 to +10 with 0 being normal mood, -10 being extremely depressed, and +10 being extremely manic. Rate your mood every day, or if it changes a lot, three times a day or more. Write it down.

SSRI antidepressants can also trigger mania in bipolar disorder, if taken without a mood stabiliser.

Bipolar disorder is an uncontrollable swing from mania (during which you have very high self-esteem, feel you can do anything you want, do risky things, etc.) to depression (so severe that you can even plan your own suicide during these periods).

Can paranoia be part of mania? Because yesterday I went directly from paranoid to manic without a stop in the gray zone.