How do you know you have a problem

I had a therapist tell me once, "if your happy sometimes and sad other times you are bipolar, absolutely". I don't think I am, since I have met other "real" bipolars and I do not relate with them. But I'm starting to think maybe I have an anxiety disorder. They run in familes and my dad has OCD. But I got in a car accident the other day, and every since then I have been soo panicy and even flipped out on some other stuff, cuz I'm pretty nervous (uncontrolled crying after it happened and a couple days after, hyperventitialing (no fainting), panic grips me now when I drive, especially since she hit me. I'm afriad of driving through green lights, which I did when she ran a red light and hit me). Is this just normal after an incident that could of been way worse, but wasn't (also my first car accident). I've had anixety before but not so much I though it was a chemical imbalance, more like I'm nervous shits going down and it's okay to feel like that.

one other thing. maybe I'm just emotional or senstive, but I also like to analyze things throuoghly (which makes me an honor student and works well with most aspects of my life) but it hurts my relationship, in that I think about things deep and then I usualy take an emotional stand on it. My boyfriend is simple and does not think on the same level as me, which I repsect. We ARE different there. But the question is do I carry on shit way past the point of him understanding me, usually when it's no silly (he's an older version of a class clown) or is it me driving to hard into it and scarring him off? I'm so confused.

 

That therapist needs a therapist.

Who ISNT happy sometimes and sad sometimes????

Maybe she graduated last in her class. Someone had to.

 

they were after my father's wallet. Someone in school told a teacher she saw me kissing girls in the bathroom (not true, I experimented later with women but it was a year or two after that, so total bs) so my parents picked me up from school and drove me to a mental hospital (under 18, I have no say). When I was in there, for 2 fuckin weeks (which made me feel psychotic, when I never did before, the guilt of being in that kind of place almost consumed me into a deep depression, that and all my friends knew). But anyways, I saw kids who were seriously fucked up, seeing skulls following them, burning themselves, etc. But at the same time half of the kids seemed perfectly normal to me. They asked us to raise our hands one day and see who has what, and when they called bi-ploar all the room but a couple of kids raised their hands. No surprise it was the ones I saw as pretty normal kids, that raised their hands. What I think is this, they fucked us over b/c we were young and could not say no (the medicine they gave me messed up my moods, not fixed them, and I even started lactating at 15 til I got off of it). I still do not tell many people about this, bc I'm so ashamed I was in there and afraid to someone else, that might prove me crazy.

It is for this reasons I am VERY uncomfortable with doctors. I do not trust them, but yet I think I may have an anxiety disorder, if only a minor one. Thank you psychology class for giving me the real info these quaks could not.

 

Happiness is a choice. Read "Happiness Is a Choice"'' by Barry Neil Kaufman. It may allow you to look at everything in your life differently. No one really has issues because issues are how we llok at things. Therapists LOVE to tell you that there is something wrong and prescribe you meds and put you through insane amounts of behaviorism types of interventions. Behaviorism degrades a person by singling out the behaviors that one percieves as being "bad." If you choose to be happy, then your OCD and nerviousness that you percieve as being bad will go away because you decided to be happy in this life. Never fall into the trap of these conservative behaviorists! They tell you that you're unhappy because it is their need to do so. It makes them happy even if they can not see it that way. Seriously read "Happiness Is a Choice." The writer is a progressive therapist who cured his son of autism in the 60s/70s. He opened up "The Option Institute" in MA to help people work with emotional issues the nontraditional way. Also, they work with people with autism or related disorders.

 

Academic psychology, while by no means perfect, is far and away better than any half-assed pop psedu0-psychology.

 

This book, written years ago might help provide a way of explaining not only individual feelings, but relationship issues. I found that it gave people an easy language to encourage discussions.

 

The therapist needs to be deregistered, taken out and shot. Being happy sometimes and sad sometimes is normal, innit?

With the car anxiety business.... I'd have thought it would be absolutely normal to be anxious around cars, if you're just had a car accident. You'd have had a bad fright, and it's gonna take your nerves a while to setle down. That's not a disorder, that's your instinctive 'fight flight or freeze' response thinking you've just been nearly eaten by a lion or something, so it tells your body to pump out chemicals that put you in a nervous, jumpy, watchful state so it doesn't happen again.

If it lasts a really long time - say, more than a week, depending how severe the crash was - or it's REALLY affecting you badly, it MIGHT be a sign of an anxiety problem.

As for analysing stuff... maybe do a google for "Highly Sensitive Person". I generally think HSP's a bullshit term for people who've probably got Asperger's (I was 'diagnosed' as the former for a long time, now we know it's the latter) but it might be a starting point for some further research for you.

Take care.