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I have a great psychiatrist who helps me tease apart whether or not a mood is situational (e.g. sadness due to grief, anger due to life circumstances, etc.), and doesn't automatically assume a mood change is due to the bipolar disorder (well, schizoaffective disorder--bipolar type in my case). It's a relief that my psychiatrist is like that because as a result, I don't have a lot of unnecessary med changes.
This is sooo important --it sounds like you have a great psychiatrist! I think it's a kind of 'skill' for anyone to tease out how they're feeling and why, identify their emotions, but it seems to me that this type of skill -which involves distinguishing between 'episodes' and other moods- when having bipolar disorder makes a huge difference, maybe it's essential.
I think acknowledging that it's not bipolar, in part, involves a certain tolerance for unpleasant emotions --in that a pill is not the answer to make it go away. The treatment is different, the way(s) to resolve it are different. When it's sadness, anger, etc. unrelated to bipolar, I think on the positive side, it can lead to less hopelessness/helplessness, knowing that this isn't something dropping out of the sky, but rather something that can be worked on and changed in the long-term. The downside, or part of it, may be the issue of 'guilt' which I mentioned earlier.
I don't understand rapid cycling either, maybe psychiatrists are diagnosing differently than the intention of the DSM for any number of reasons that I'm clearly not in a position to understand, as I'm not a mental health professional. I'm actually planning on asking my psychiatrist about it next I see him and see what he thinks, he may provide some insight.
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