Confusion, Who Am I?

Mood today: depressed and confused
Well, last night was another one of those unsettling nights where i cant get my mind to take a rest long enough for me to get some shut eye. I didn't end up going to sleep until after 9 am sometime. I woke up this morning full of thoughts that make me cry. I read last night about mania, somethings I knew about and others were new to me altogether. Mania for those of you who don't know is things like: irritability, hostility, excitability, restlessness, inappropriate behaviors or humor, impulsiveness, extravagant spending, grandiose thinking, distractability, racing thoughts, creative thinking, disorientation, exhilaration, and much more...the one thing i found out that was new to me was the fact that when in a mania we tend to make plans or goals that are unrealistic or unattainable. This made me cry, it made me question who i am. I am always coming up with new ideas and making plans that i never keep. All along it thought that these things are things that i am interested in. I never saw them as something that my illness provoked...and maybe they are things that i want, but as it states "not realistic". I have lived my life with so much disappointment in myself, because i never seem to live up to my expectations or things i plan never work out. Has it just been that all this time i have been setting my standards to high? Is it really so extravagant to want a vacation , even with our low income, is it wrong to want to buy a house and not rent, is it wrong to want my car fixed, get a degree, write a book, start a hobby??? Are all these things unrealistic..where does the mania start and where does it end, where is the line between reality and me, and mania and me ? Whats true and whats not? Is my whole life nothing but mistakes, because of my wishful thinking, or is it just that i am a failure?
For as long as people started telling me i showed signs of bipolar...i would laugh it off. I don't even think when i was diagnosed that i even believed it then. Yeah i would tell people thats what i had, but only because so many times it seemed i owed people an explanation...not necessarily because i believed it. But as of these last few weeks, i have been thinking so much. I have actually been seeing what other people see, even some things that others don't see. I can look back at least a week or so and see my waves of emotion. I can look back two weeks in this particular case and see how i have been building up to the other day with my friends, building up to that absolute happiest peak, only to crash and burn. I am learning with what i read about mania, that i am 90% of the time in some sort of mania, but as i decline the symptoms change. When i hit bottom i stay at bottom for maybe days or weeks at a time. One thing i find curious though, is that not all my mania symptoms are gone. I will be so deep into depression yet i still wont be able to sleep, the only thing that changes there is that when i do finally fall asleep i don't wake up for sometimes 24 hours. I am still irritable, only now i am irritable and weepy. When i am in this state i feel like everything and everyone is judging me, and i am automatically set into defensive mode. People are always getting angry with me when i snap or get hostile, but the truth is i don't feel like i can help it.
I mean hate using the bipolar card, I always have...it makes me feel weak, and like i am making up excuses for being a horrible person, but now i am starting to think maybe it is true that bipolar swings do this to me, and that it isn't my fault. Okay, so now maybe i am a believer in this bipolar shit...but how do i convince others that this is a real thing, people that don't have it, or don't know anyone first hand who does. How can i make it reality for them? So that they wont judge inappropriately or so they won't get so angry. Trust me, I know it sounds pathetic or desperate, or like i said like i am trying to find excuses for being an unpredictable bitch...but it isn't. Maybe that is the first step...to understand that i am not making this up for myself...maybe then it will be easier for others to understand that too. I have to believe in what i have in order for me to help myself so others can help me. I don't know tomorrow i may have the same attitude as before, but today i understand a little better and i want to continue to learn. I want to learn so that i can better understand myself and i can help others to understand it too. Also so that maybe one day when i blog i will be a success story of someone LIVING with bipolar can live a life worth living.