Interesting. I might as well elaborate that the person in question is my mother, and, like i said, I've never seen her anywhere close to manic. Depressive episodes, absolutely. She calls it the "black hole"; major depressive symptoms: anhedonia, loss of appetite, extreme fatigue (I would sometimes have whole summers to myself because she was sleeping 18 hours a day), physical pain, feelings of constant hopelessness and pointlessness, including suicidal ideation. Used to scare the crap out of me when I was younger, though by now I know she just talks and is unlikely to do anything.

She insists what she has is rare, hereditary, undiagnosable until the person is dead or unless can describe very specific symptoms. The term "cyclic mood disorder" was used by her psychiatrist who affirms this claim that the only way to truly diagnose it is after the person is dead and you remove their brain and examine it physically; and the neurological symptoms won't show up on a brain scan, apparently. I find this hard to believe, but again, apparently her psychiatrist affirmed it.

To be fair, depressive disorders run in that side of my family. My grandfather recognized his own symptoms in my mom when she was just a child; my great-grandfather had severe depression and committed suicide. I don't know how far back it goes, but I do know I have depressive tendencies of my own. So that might count for something.

Still, "bipolar" of any kind doesn't make sense for someone who's never manic. I admit, my mom has had mood swings before, nothing severe though. Though I always found them jarring - someone's perfectly nice one day and hates your guts the next and you have no idea what happened. But it's still not a manic state.

Sorry to ramble. :l