I’m a 19-year-old student and I’m really confused about myself. Mental illness runs heavily in my family—my older brother is autistic, bipolar, and has ADHD, my mom is bipolar, and my dad has severe ADHD. I also experienced a decent amount of trauma growing up due to my brother’s bipolar disorder before it was treated. I’ve been diagnosed with dyslexia and dysgraphia, and I’ve been told most of my life I likely have ADHD.
Since I was a kid, I’ve struggled with intense anxiety and depression, and I gravitated towards self-harm as young as 9–10. In high school, it got overwhelming to the point where I was smoking weed almost every day just to get through school. I still struggle with that.
About a year ago, I was sexually assaulted by someone who I later found out was in a black out drunk manic episode (she hadn’t been diagnosed at the time). Earlier this school year, my best friend—who had no prior mental health history—went into psychosis, which really affected his life and shook me a lot. Then more recently, the same person who assaulted me a year ago experienced a severe manic episode and re-contacted me pulled me into it. She was eventually hospitalized, and while in the psych ward, called me saying I was her soulmate. I’ve since established a no-contact order.
On top of all of this, my own mental state has been really unstable. I have experienced serious levels of paranoia and anxiety. I’ve been sleeping 5-6 hours a night most of this school year, struggling to function in classes (or even feel able to get out of bed), and feeling really up and down. I’ve also been making a huge amount of music (over 150 songs in the last 6 months), and honestly feel like I’m one of the best musicians in the world and destined to be famous. Funny enough people tell me I am gonna be famous actually quite often, and I often try to ride that high. That mindset has always driven me creatively and similarly when I played sports, but now I’m starting to question it.
I attempted suicide less than 2 months ago, and overall this past year has been very unstable for me. I recently also have grown a very unhealthy connection to social media, being extremely paranoid about a-lot of unhealthy and unnecessary things.
lately I’ve developed this fear that anyone can “snap” at any time, especially after what I’ve witnessed recently . After reading reddit posts about peoples experience with BPD, I had a short (about 15 minutes) experience recently that felt very intense and like nothing I have ever felt. I understand this was short and very likely a serious trauma response, it is not my goal to self diagnosis in any way, but, since then I’ve been worried that I’m prone to something like bipolar and that I might eventually lose control.
Has anyone experienced something similar, especially with a strong family history? How did you figure out what was actually going on and get help?