I'm not 100% sure. Months, but not years. I think this past year, I had about three episodes that likely met the DSM-5 criteria for an episode, but they were extinguished fairly quickly. I did experience a lot of stress, but that doesn't count. I did have a number of "blips". I didn't have any depressive episodes this year. They were hypomanic/manic to mixed, then back to baseline.

Since being medicated for bipolar disorder, I believe I had one or two years when I was mostly stable, but again, still had plenty of "blips". Those two really good years were mid 2015 through mid 2016. I had a doozy of a mania with psychosis in May 2016, when we traveled to Portugal. That was my worst within the last seven or eight years.

Before medications? I'm not sure. I used to have very long mildly elevated episodes that sometimes turned full manic or mixed, and sometimes not. My pure depressive episodes were relatively short. Since the likely start of my bipolar disorder, I probably had stable periods lasting at least as long as a couple years or few years, but with "blips" in between.

Q: How has the course of your bipolar disorder changed over the years?