For those of you who don't experience frequent episodes of mania/hypomania/depression even when you aren't medicated, how do you deal with being bipolar when you aren't experiencing the episodes? Do you still take medications or go to therapy regularly? Can you keep up with charting your moods? Do you ever feel disconnected from having the illness until the symptoms show up again?

The above is the important part and I appreciate everyone who takes the time to answer the questions if they can. The rest of this post optional reading consisting of my own answers (and even more questions).

My patterns are fairly regular and spaced kind of far apart. I usually get one mild to moderate depression a year that lasts 2-5 months. I don't think I get hypomania every year, but when I do, it usually lasts weeks instead of months but I might have more than one episode. About every 3-5 years, I get worse than usual episodes that last longer and are more severe and wreak havoc on my life. Both depression and hypomania have caused big problems for me.

I find it difficult to maintain any sort of treatment regimen or heed preventative recommendations when I'm not experiencing the episodes though. I just can't keep up with a daily routine for something that might take years to have any major impact on me. I also don't want the constant reminders that something is wrong with me. Unfortunately, once I do hit one of those episodes it's usually too late to prevent it from causing damage.

I also feel a disconnect from the illness when I'm not experiencing it directly. When I joined this forum only a few days ago, I was miserable and in a state of desperation. I was dealing with what I believe to be a dysphoric hypomania (in case that label isn't standard enough, hypomania with mixed features). It had been going on for weeks and seemed like it would never end. It did end though - abruptly - only a couple days ago. I spent some time writing down my thoughts while it was happening. I've been reading the stuff I wrote this morning and those thoughts seem a million miles away already. It seems bizarre that something that was such a big deal only a few days ago is now kind of like, whatever. Is it unusual to feel this sort of disconnect so quickly?

I've also felt like a bit of an outcast reading posts here. There seem to be a lot of rapid cyclers even though my understanding is that it's the less common sort of bipolar. Do you think rapid cycling is overrepresented because people are more likely to hang around a forum like this if they experience symptoms more frequently? Is there anyone who sticks around for long periods of time even when they feel fine? I'm wondering whether or not I should.