I've found my body has a certain level of tolerance before it needs to balance out a bit again. My baseline functioning has been depressed for so long that my body has no concept of how to run "normal" (read that to mean:not severely, suicidally depressed). I will have times of relief from the depression, but I always come back to a lower baseline functioning than the average person.
For me, this is easier to handle without medications because my fluctuations are shorter overall, and it is easier to come out of a really bad spell.
There is disagreement in my records over my diagnosis though, so I have a feeling no one knows for sure if they should classify me as mdd or bipolar 2. I do not ever get "manic" but my functioning sometimes resembles hypomanic when the depression starts to lift... I would suggest talking to your treatment providers, as they may have a better picture of what is going on, and can actually make a diagnosis based on what they are seeing and what you tell them.