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I don't know what websites you've been reading, but unfortunately, there seems to be a lot of misinformation out there when it comes to 'rapid cycling' bipolar disorder. It really does refer to 4 or more episodes a year, and cycling as rapidly as a few times throughout a given day, or day to day, is extremely unusual --not entirely impossible, but super-unusual.
Great difficulty in regulating emotions on an on-going, continuous basis, when faced with environmental triggers (and if you're interacting with people throughout the day, the triggers can be many) tends to point towards something else. Sometimes Borderline Personality Disorder, sometimes, perhaps, a mood dysregulation disorder that doesn't neatly fit into any diagnosis -I'm not sure about this, but I would think it's possible.
A bipolar mood/episode can be initially triggered by something, but at some point it 'morphs' into something else (or this is how I experience it sometimes) where it becomes divorced from the initial trigger, and continues on and on and on, for weeks, even months. It's a situation where, you could resolve the initial trigger, work that out, and yet this continues to morph and get worse and stay with you -it becomes something else. And doesn't involve, switching, meanwhile, from this mood to that.
Granted, no episode is entirely 'pure' and there will be other emotions involved, but it *is* continuous, pervasive, in a way that the moods you describe are not. It's all very hard to explain and it's different for everyone and different for the same people at different times.
I would talk to your pdoc about the intensity of your moods, how often they change, what triggers them. Maybe you can keep a mood chart over a period of time, with this information.
I see you already have a pdoc --what have you discussed so far, as far as what's going on with you? Or are you just starting out? Best of luck!
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