Quote:
Originally Posted by AniManiac
...The main one I'm not sure I understand clearly is "cycling" - what does that mean to you? When your moods are changing, or have gone completely around from low to high (or vice versa) or...? Is that different from a "mood swing" or are they essentially the same?...I understand "episodes" to mean periods of time where one has particularly severe symptoms, e.g. a depressive episode, a manic episode. Are there other ways that you would use "episode"?...
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Oh that is so weird, Ani! I've been thinking about this sort of thing lately too! I'm kind of confused when I see the words 'episode' or 'cycling' used, followed by a description of what, for myself, I'd think of as emotions or reactions or mood lability. Or my favorite non-technical word for it: "blip".
Like... I could be humming along in a pretty normal mood, then maybe a driver p.o.'s me or something happens that sends me ruminating. I might react in a rather extreme and pretty sudden way, but then that's that. Minutes or hours later I've returned to whatever level I've been humming along at and spending the overwhelming majority of my time. A shift in either direction or even both in a day, still, I'd refer to those kind of things as temporary reactions, even if they
don't have an external trigger.
So, to sum it up... Personally, I can experience a very rapid shift, but would not consider it cycling or an episode unless it lasted quite awhile. At
least days, but more often weeks till I'd "count" it. To me, it's a
significant, persisting departure.