I have a question about hypomania and mania, darn it, I was trying to answer the thread on hypomania and mania and then bam! I confused the crap outta myself the more I looked back and thought about it.

And Bipolarnurse, your reply there really hit home for me. Without getting into the nitty gritty details of being held by police when psychotic, even they assumed it was drugs or drinking and failed to see it for what it was, heck I didn't know what was wrong with me either. A few times of that, I mean I knew something was wrong with me but that was a bit to truamatic to even try to break it down. I think that is still a very painful memory for me. But I really relate to what you said there.

Ok so my question is this, how do I know that what I considered my hypo was hypo, and not just mania. Mania is no stranger to me, spent more time there than depressed. But it has not been a good experience, and I have had psychosis enter scene almost every time. Long standing, persistent, I don't know how to say this so ..when I say psychosis I mean like 24/7 for weeks or days, full on delusions, hallucinations that were very persistent, Sorry I am trying to explain because there are so many new people here who I don't know or who are not familiar with me or my ebarassing breakdowns on pc

I always saw it like this for my cycle.... hypo---->mania-----> dysphoric mania , that would be what I would always cycle through. First few days I felt amazing, exploding with vibrant energy I could literally feel bursting out my finger tips and toes. I also would be quite grandiose at the stage, often I would hear running commentary..commenting on my every move yes, but also cheering me on. Quicker wit, fast speech, less sensitive etc ( my hypo)

But this would only last a week or so before things would be so fast that it felt like my soul was colliding with the universe, the productivity slows, the thoughts increase speed, becoming only fractions of thoughts, you can't pick anything clear out of that noise. Frantic energy, I am here and there for minutes or seconds but still trying to produce something with my actions. Behaviour and ideas definitely get louder and more eccentric ..( heh nice way to say odd ) (my mania)

After another week or two the thoughts become even more fragmented, just lightning speed blips, the commentators I hear become very antagonistic and pick apart my every move, no longer cheering me on but extremely critical, the energy becomes even more frantic, I cannot produce anything with my actions except pacing and useless motion but I cannot stop moving at all. Agitation both physical and mental sets in and becomes unbearable. But I am not irritable, I become more scared, paranoid and cannot function at all. This can last a few weeks more or longer. I feel in utter crisis at this point. ( my dysphoric mania)

This cycle for me would typically last 2-6 months. So it takes a while to move from one stage to the next. I am not listing off all my symptoms but I guess just trying to convey a bit of what I was experiencing. Hard to capture it with words. All the regular symptoms spending, hyper sexual, risk taking, not sleeping or eating etc. would all be present in what I called my hypo.

Now looking at this I am not sure maybe its all just mania, it doesn't really matter one way or another. I am just wondering if anyone relates to that and if there is another way to look at it..

I am not quite sure why I broke that down into hypo and mania. There are no breaks between them, one just flows to the next. Just gradual increase in intensity. Seems like maybe I was doing that for markers for myself.

Sorry its so long, I suck at short posts. I tried so forgive me if I give you a bad reading experience.