I've just been thinking and reading, and what I want to know is, does depression ALWAYS follow mania for you? Is it possible to come down from mania into a euthymic state?

I'm just interested in other peoples' patterns. Seasonal, episodic, whatever. What's yours?

I tend to be manic in the summer with a little bit of rapid cycling and mixed, every October I end up manic for about a month, and then depressed. For the past two years I required hospitalization in November. I end up depressed again in January, this year it lasted for 2 or 3 months. My first textbook manic episode was in April 2008.

Pretty much every manic episode I have is followed by a depression of sorts, but when I rapid cycle in the summer I can go from manic to euthymic or depressed to euthymic without completing the pattern.