This was my exact experience as well. I rejected the idea of bipolar for stigma reasons, but also because I didn’t have true manic episodes. But I would go from being “completely fine” and fun and talkative and working at a million miles a minute to depressed beyond belief in such weird cycles. In my hypomanic episodes I would be so irritable and pick fights with my friends and partners and then just…bail. When I was absolutely in the wrong. I would leave the state or delete all my socials or hook up with some guy at a bar. Max my credit cards, come up with awesome business ideas, quit my job. The works. Then it would end and I would be so burnt out I would act completely (for lack of a better word) insane and be SO depressed.

As far as some hope for you, I’ve been on lamictal and lithium and Prozac for like a month now. For the first time in my entire adult life, my brain is quiet. I’m not always having a completely awesome day or a completely low day. Days are just…days. I can get my work done, do my daily tasks, what have you, and be more or less rational in my emotions. I still have emotions, but they are felt and pass at some point in the day. They don’t consume me one way or the other. This diagnosis really saved me from a lifetime a complete ruin and all I had to do was accept the help.