Hello, I have bipolar II! It could still change to I, but I think it's more II than I. I'm just typing this so you can see if there's something you can relate to. Bipolar II can be very different for different people.

Since I got depressed at around age 10 (slowly progressed from age 9 to certainly clinically significant at age 14), I've been depressed for what I'd guess is about 90% of my time. Since age 16 I've mostly been in a serious depression (I am currently 22). My pdoc and my T said not so long ago they thought my depression was mild. I didn't agree, and when they tested me (twice) I scored almost in the roof: 52 on the Beck Depression Inventory BDI-II. I have a very atypical depression, which I think is because I've learned how to act normally around other people. I know the professionals are the professionals and all... just don't trust them completely. You need to trust yourself first. Professional opinions can be rather unfounded at times.

My periods of depression are usually longer than yours, but everyone is different, and some have shorter periods. Some have much more hypomania than others (I have recently had my share of that too). Some have more and longer normal periods, others have almost none. Rapid cycling leads to poor prognosis, so shorter periods are not necessarily better.

I also get anger and anxiety in cycles, it seems. I'm not sure if this is during some form of hypomania or not. I suspect it is something different, although I have read that hypomania can cause a lot of anger and anxiety. When I get the anger thing I want to wear a knife so I can stab people if I'm lucky and they attack me. I'm normally not a violent person at all, but when the anger comes, weak and skinny me is looking for a fight.

Bipolar II is not often considered the most serious mental illness, no, but that depends entirely on what you mean by serious. If you mean level of increased mortality rate, proportion of sick time to time in remission and quality of life, then bipolar II is probably one of the worst diagnoses. If you mean severity of symptoms, then no. We're somewhere in the middle.