raging vortex, it is an interesting experience when there is no discernible trigger. I have had similar moments to what you mentioned in your first post. Just a brief moment, and it would like an explosion of adrenaline for me and either the elation (or sometimes a violent feeling fury) would come out of nowhere. Even if there had been a trigger, it could sometimes be the most minor thing. Maybe a portion of a song, the way a breeze suddenly intoxicated me. They were dangerous being runaway trains of insanity. It's much safer to be clued in to an episode's development, isn't it?

A lot of my more clearly triggered sudden hypomanias and manias were linked to antidepressants. One example was when I was severely depressed when living in Taiwan, a depression that followed a brief hypomania. I just totally crashed and didn't even get out of my bed to even call out of work. My apartment mates had to explain what was going on with me. My boss arrived at my apartment with a couple of the Taiwanese teacher's aides, to take me to the hospital. I was returned to my apartment with bags and bags of mystery medications. I guess I took them for at least a couple days, but barely remember that week. Before I knew it, I gave notice at that job, losing oodles of money as penalties for early departure, and set out to Hong Kong. I was extremely manic there for a week, then moved on even more manic to Bangkok, Thailand. It lasted more weeks in other parts of Thailand until one day I discovered that a huge chunk of my money was stolen. Boom! Though I did manage to get back to Taiwan, I quickly returned to the US a couple weeks later, and things evened out again.

The quickest dive into depression was after maybe my eighth psychiatric hospitalization. Almost all of my previous hospitalizations involved mania, whether pure or mixed. I don't know if it was a final sudden crash or that, plus being put on high dose Depakote and Invega. I went on to call that the "Depressakote Evil Combo". That became my longest and most severe PURE depression that I remember since maybe my mid teens. I even had to have ECT treatments to help get me out of it. The instant resolution of the manic end to leave just depression was beyond rapid.