Happens to be one of those nights where my mind is racing and I end up spending the whole night on the internet thinking too much about my past even though I'm supposed to work in a few hours. Your story hits extremely close to home. I was diagnosed with BP last summer and most of what you're describing sounds like myself if I had to put it into words what life felt like. Small town, college dropout, unemployed, thinking my future is completely fucked because of a manic episode that just had to happen during a crucial time of my life. I was teaching a group that I had been in, that I had dreamed of teaching for years after, and it just so happened I lost control of myself due to this mental stuff. Lots of friendships and reputation completely lost, seemingly unrecoverable.
Long, horrible story I guess, but the point is the fallout of it and my ensuing diagnosis brought me that feeling of being stuck you're experiencing. You've gone from being in the most confident state of your life, thinking you can do anything, even starting your own religion (no words need be said here, I know exactly what you mean), to having nothing really going for you and a lot of opportunities and goals taken from you.
So, I don't want to pawn anything said here off as advice, because I'm still on my journey back to normalcy. I work, stay active, keep in contact with two or three friends. Currently making plans to go back to school to finish my Engineering masters. Who knows, maybe I'll get a chance to teach my old group again. It's not where I want to be but compared to where I was this time last year, it's something. Life isn't a race and you have to find someway to really believe that so you can make progress and work towards your goals at a pace that you're comfortable with. Seriously, making headway out of this place will take time but that's completely okay. I don't know if you'll ever make it back to your Ivy league school but you'll eventually find something that fills that part of your life when you're ready. You sound like an otherwise badass hard worker, bipolar doesn't change that.
I'll just say that you absolutely have the right attitude in reaching out to connect with someone, even if it's just on an online forum. I'm lucky that I had a close friend to talk bullshit with this past year. If you have someone like that, don't be afraid to talk about it with them. Skype, phone calls, something to keep you going. You mentioned not having anyone to talk to, and if that's really the case, that's a type of hell that you shouldn't go through so feel free to message me if you want to talk about anything. I'm only 25 and I was 24 last summer when this stuff hit me hard.
Also, one last thing, the no doctor thing sounds like something you should fix asap. Medication can be the spark you need to get back on track.