There have been many times when I was not having hypomanic periods that I would have extreme irritabiity/anxiety then depression. I had a recent bout with it and the doc called it mixed states and changed the meds. I have found when my meds are doing their thing, I am not having a lot of irritability like I used to.
Pdocs do say, and it has been true for me, that sometimes adding an AD to mood stabilizers makes me anxious, but I would much rather deal with anxiety than deep depression.