Thank you, everyone. Read through the comments, and am supposed to be getting into the psychiatrist next Tuesday, if he doesn't end up having another last-minute appointment from someone in a halfway house or in immediate crisis - that's an issue with this area. There are loads of people who need outpatient treatment, but only...two psychiatrists I'm aware of, covering an area of 40,000 people or so.
The therapist just threw the possibility out there, and said she wasn't saying that she was making an official diagnosis, but that I needed to be officially seen again, and possibly, now that I'm in my twenties and my hormones have stabilized from adolescence somewhat, it might be easier for the psychiatrist to make a more accurate diagnosis.
Paranoid delusions can certainly be present in Bipolar disorder, as can auditory hallucinations (I usually get something to that effect right when I'm drifting off to sleep when I'm in a bad way; they're never instructive or anything. Usually just my name or a random sentence almost like AM radio signal, where you get little pieces of a sentence or something, that jolts me back to fully awake instantly) but generally, if they're super present, they tend to point to schizophrenia or shizoaffective disorder.
I think her main cause for concern was the paranoid delusions, though. They're never anything like the FBI is out to get me, I'm the chosen one and the Gods want to punish me, or anything you'd read in a novel with a paranoid schizophrenic as a character...they're more like the watching what I think around certain people for some irrational fear that they know what I'm thinking. I know the whole time they can't be, and sometimes, if I'm in a really bad way, I worry if I've actually spoken the thoughts aloud even. This isn't constant. Again, it's just at my worst.
And I feel that she has a valid point, but anti-psychotics have never worked for me, mood stabilizers have never worked for me...the only thing that ever worked for anything was anti-anxiety medication, and that doesn't stop any of the symptoms they're really concerned with.
On a brighter note, I bought some PS3 games today. I put my Skyrim quest on hold (I'm the stealthiest Orc you're wont to meet, with mad melee and archery skills as well as smithing and alchemy; magicka is under-developed, but I'm a damn Orc - what'd you expect?! :P ) to play the new Bioshock, and it is a breathtakingly gorgeous game. I hear that it lags a little bit in the middle, but the beginning is absolutely fantastic. I checked out a little bit of LA Noire on my own without my friend, and kind of wish there weren't so many cut scenes, and Katamari never disappoints.
Also, I put Arkham Asylum on an indefinite hold because the Killer Croc boss fight freaks me right out. As if making it through the Bane one without having a heart attack wasn't enough...
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It's a hand-me-down, the thoughts are broken
Perhaps they're better left unsung
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