[Anika.]

I have a question about hypomania and mania, darn it, I was trying to answer the thread on hypomania and mania and then bam! I confused the crap outta myself the more I looked back and thought about it.

And Bipolarnurse, your reply there really hit home for me. Without getting into the nitty gritty details of being held by police when psychotic, even they assumed it was drugs or drinking and failed to see it for what it was, heck I didn't know what was wrong with me either. A few times of that, I mean I knew something was wrong with me but that was a bit to truamatic to even try to break it down. I think that is still a very painful memory for me. But I really relate to what you said there.

Ok so my question is this, how do I know that what I considered my hypo was hypo, and not just mania. Mania is no stranger to me, spent more time there than depressed. But it has not been a good experience, and I have had psychosis enter scene almost every time. Long standing, persistent, I don't know how to say this so ..when I say psychosis I mean like 24/7 for weeks or days, full on delusions, hallucinations that were very persistent, Sorry I am trying to explain because there are so many new people here who I don't know or who are not familiar with me or my ebarassing breakdowns on pc

I always saw it like this for my cycle.... hypo---->mania-----> dysphoric mania , that would be what I would always cycle through. First few days I felt amazing, exploding with vibrant energy I could literally feel bursting out my finger tips and toes. I also would be quite grandiose at the stage, often I would hear running commentary..commenting on my every move yes, but also cheering me on. Quicker wit, fast speech, less sensitive etc ( my hypo)

But this would only last a week or so before things would be so fast that it felt like my soul was colliding with the universe, the productivity slows, the thoughts increase speed, becoming only fractions of thoughts, you can't pick anything clear out of that noise. Frantic energy, I am here and there for minutes or seconds but still trying to produce something with my actions. Behaviour and ideas definitely get louder and more eccentric ..( heh nice way to say odd ) (my mania)

After another week or two the thoughts become even more fragmented, just lightning speed blips, the commentators I hear become very antagonistic and pick apart my every move, no longer cheering me on but extremely critical, the energy becomes even more frantic, I cannot produce anything with my actions except pacing and useless motion but I cannot stop moving at all. Agitation both physical and mental sets in and becomes unbearable. But I am not irritable, I become more scared, paranoid and cannot function at all. This can last a few weeks more or longer. I feel in utter crisis at this point. ( my dysphoric mania)

This cycle for me would typically last 2-6 months. So it takes a while to move from one stage to the next. I am not listing off all my symptoms but I guess just trying to convey a bit of what I was experiencing. Hard to capture it with words. All the regular symptoms spending, hyper sexual, risk taking, not sleeping or eating etc. would all be present in what I called my hypo.

Now looking at this I am not sure maybe its all just mania, it doesn't really matter one way or another. I am just wondering if anyone relates to that and if there is another way to look at it..

I am not quite sure why I broke that down into hypo and mania. There are no breaks between them, one just flows to the next. Just gradual increase in intensity. Seems like maybe I was doing that for markers for myself.

Sorry its so long, I suck at short posts. I tried so forgive me if I give you a bad reading experience.

(Haha, just wrote out a reply that wandered waaaay left field, so deleted and will try again...)
Dunno. Like you, Anika, I think it's a continuum of increasing intensity. So where are the demarcation lines? A lot of them are quite waffley. It's something I've wondered about for sure. Probably because I have quite a few things in the mushy middle(!) Full-on manic? No. Things that push the bounds of hypomania? Yes. (A lot of other things, but trying not to stray off too far this time. ) But do they cross those bounds? Did I ever tip over? Who knows.

Not exactly a helpful answer, because I can't clarify either.
In a sense it doesn't matter whether it fell on the hypomanic or manic side of things. But in another sense it does matter, because -- and this may seem stupid-- but I'm left not knowing which word to use in describing an experience(!) And that kind of thing bothers me, because words matter and because I don't want to overstate. (Or, understate, though it is by far the side I'd rather err on). Like... can I legitimately use this word? I don't want to if I shouldn't, because to me that would come off like someone who is simply caffeine-buzzed calling it hypomania (or worse, mania). Don't let me commence on that...(which is to say, "don't get me started", but I'm sick of that expression. Or how about, "Permit me not to commence upon that topic.)

[Anika.]

Ha Iz, yup it doesn't really matter but it's bugging me now. You think you can relate to something too, but does it relate? Not that you can ever really know that anyways forsure. When I actually look at it more it seems like I was probably juat manic from the start, when you are hearing commentary ..that might be further manic than hypo. But that is my starting point, maybe I just wanted to have hypo too. But it made sense to have that as a starting block.

Buy more just my measuring stick for myself. That first stage is ok, after that not ok..danger zone. I could not think of anytimes it stayed at the first stage and didn't continue on to the second and third stage.

When people here refer the crash of depression after mania or hypo all I can relate with is the further spiral to dysphoric mania, that would be my crash. And then back to baseline eventually. Also makes me wonder if that is not hypo, do I get hypo? Maybe I don't. Maybe I do and dont see it.

And yes It bugs me if I am using the wrong the term, it took me forever to find the right term for my agitation, I dunno makes me think of washing machines. Kinda felt like I was in one but didn't come to mind that that was what I was feeling. So stuck to the statement " I feel like I need to go blow up a walmart " as an alternative and you can see how that might be taken. Probably not as restless energy.

[catsrhelm]

I guess I am a lumper, rather than a splitter. Mania is mania to me, it's just that it comes in different degrees, just like you experience. All I know is I could use a little mania any old time now, because I have been in a depressive funk.

The year I was diagnosed, I had more distinct episodes, I went up gradually several months and went down overnight which lasted about 5 weeks then went way up again for about 3 months and crashed overnight way down. I think there were some dips in the first mania but nothing like the actual depressions and nothing like the second depression that lasted 7 months despite medications. Over the last 7 years the episodes have changed and start dysphoric manic then start to go down and get blanketed with major amounts of anxiety. Like putting gasoline on a fire.

[Amelie10]

Annika, I so relate to all of this and your confusion about the words. My issue is with my diagnosis. I want to say I am BP II because I my unmanageability is definitely with the depression. But my pdoc thinks there have been full blown manic episodes (early on when I was only taking antidepressants). And I definitely have the severe agitation at times when I'm hypomanic.

Like you said it doesn't matter whether it is BP I or BP II, it is what it is.

I feel grateful today that I'm coming out of a depression. I'm hoping to be stable for awhile.

I love this forum, it is really helping me better understand my illness and not to feel so alone because people who don't have it, don't get it.

Originally Posted by emomom

The year I was diagnosed, I had more distinct episodes, I went up gradually several months and went down overnight which lasted about 5 weeks then went way up again for about 3 months and crashed overnight way down. I think there were some dips in the first mania but nothing like the actual depressions and nothing like the second depression that lasted 7 months despite medications. Over the last 7 years the episodes have changed and start dysphoric manic then start to go down and get blanketed with major amounts of anxiety. Like putting gasoline on a fire.

I thought of this analogy. Sun is shining suddenly tornado goes up, tornado goes down, wind dies down, lots of rain, finally the sun shines again. (level, mixup, mixdown, depression, level)

[ultramar]

How you describe this, the progression, makes *a lot* of sense to me. I don't think any mood-episode is "pure" -if it were that simple, it would be easier to label things, as you're struggling with right now.

I don't even think it has to necessarily be considered 'mixed' just because there is more than one emotions involved, I think this can just be the natural progression of an episode, through different stages.

I do usually experience what I guess I'd call 'hypomania' before going into full-blown mania. It *is* a progression and has its stages (which will be different for everyone).

I think maybe one of several distinctions between I and II is that very progression. Perhaps with II, the 'progression' stops at some point, it doesn't get to the point of psychosis, for example. Whereas, in your case, it will continue to progress, over a long period of time, through different stages, including the stages of coming 'down' again, also involving different stages.

Maybe if you can try to see some consistency in what seems like chaos (or maybe is a kind of chaos). It sounds quite persistent to me, in a way. I don't know how to describe what you're describing myself, except that it just sounds and feels like "one" episode that goes through different stages, including that of full-blown mania. Maybe if you continue to write down what you experience, it will start to make more sense to you. If you're 'well' at the moment, it's a great time to be doing this. It may be helpful, may give you some sense of what to expect in the future.

Originally Posted by Anika.

... First few days I felt amazing, exploding with vibrant energy I could literally feel bursting out my finger tips and toes. I also would be quite grandiose at the stage, often I would hear running commentary..commenting on my every move yes, but also cheering me on. Quicker wit, fast speech, less sensitive etc ( my hypo)

But this would only last a week or so before ...

Originally Posted by Anika.

... When I actually look at it more it seems like I was probably juat manic from the start, when you are hearing commentary ..that might be further manic than hypo. But that is my starting point, maybe I just wanted to have hypo too.

When people here refer the crash of depression after mania or hypo all I can relate with is the further spiral to dysphoric mania, that would be my crash. And then back to baseline eventually. Also makes me wonder if that is not hypo, do I get hypo? Maybe I don't. Maybe I do and dont see it.

And yes It bugs me if I am using the wrong the term, it took me forever to find the right term for my agitation, I dunno makes me think of washing machines. Kinda felt like I was in one but didn't come to mind that that was what I was feeling. So stuck to the statement " I feel like I need to go blow up a walmart " as an alternative and you can see how that might be taken. Probably not as restless energy.

In your initial post, where you talk about how it starts -- all of that totally sounds like hypomania. So to the question in your second post, I'd say that yes, you do get hypo and, as you've noted, that state lasts about a week for you before turning. The "commentary"... well, I don't know, but I get a lot of internal commentary (at all times, but of wildly different natures) and haven't ever thought of it as more than that. So I guess the sort of "hearing" you get might help clarify. For example... I hear it internally, as one does thoughts. (When a good hypo --which it often isn't-- it's rather obnoxiously grandiose , but it is way more than countered by the scathing self-diatribes of my mixed.) I also hear it externally, but that is only because I'm running my yap. I don't hear it as a separate entity voice.

The "crash". This is not a given in my world either. I have experienced it that way (and badly). But it doesn't always go that way. Talk about a disincentive to rein it in(!) I may well "get away with it", and when hypo, of course believe that I WILL get away with it, lol!

Agitation. (Washing machines, heeheehee!) That's a big issue for me too. Very useful word.

Ahhh, break over. Back to moving...

[AnxietyGirl916]

Originally Posted by emomom

I thought of this analogy. Sun is shining suddenly tornado goes up, tornado goes down, wind dies down, lots of rain, finally the sun shines again. (level, mixup, mixdown, depression, level)

I think this analogy makes the most sense to me, because I can relate to it the most. Thanks for that.

[Victoria'smom]

I can't tell, it seems to be the level of functioning that distinguish between hypo and manic. Who know's the functionality of the episode? How would you know whether your functioning well or not?

My T was very clear that I need to start taking my PRN, sleep and slow down. I feel fine besides not feeling I can understand English (my first language) it all just sounds to me right now. I guess she thinks I'm (hypo)manic.

[Anika.]

IZ ..External commentary, but to me it doesn't really matter. I kind of view psychosis as my brain being in overload and messages just get mixed up, the organ is not functioning as it should because it is being overworked.. it's not a very scientific way to put it but makes sense to me. Either way if the voices are internal or external they are still coming from me another progression internal to external maybe.

Another move, I hope it goes well Iz, oh boy, I know you are probably a superwomen with packing but it's not much fun. The unpacking part hopefully will be good, if you like where you are unpacking to and I hope you do.

[Anika.]

Originally Posted by ultramar

How you describe this, the progression, makes *a lot* of sense to me. I don't think any mood-episode is "pure" -if it were that simple, it would be easier to label things, as you're struggling with right now.

I don't even think it has to necessarily be considered 'mixed' just because there is more than one emotions involved, I think this can just be the natural progression of an episode, through different stages.

I do usually experience what I guess I'd call 'hypomania' before going into full-blown mania. It *is* a progression and has its stages (which will be different for everyone).

I think maybe one of several distinctions between I and II is that very progression. Perhaps with II, the 'progression' stops at some point, it doesn't get to the point of psychosis, for example. Whereas, in your case, it will continue to progress, over a long period of time, through different stages, including the stages of coming 'down' again, also involving different stages.

Maybe if you can try to see some consistency in what seems like chaos (or maybe is a kind of chaos). It sounds quite persistent to me, in a way. I don't know how to describe what you're describing myself, except that it just sounds and feels like "one" episode that goes through different stages, including that of full-blown mania. Maybe if you continue to write down what you experience, it will start to make more sense to you. If you're 'well' at the moment, it's a great time to be doing this. It may be helpful, may give you some sense of what to expect in the future.

Thanks Ultramar. It alwats seems like a progression to me. At least for myself and it is the same with depression it creeps. I don't kniw if there are any pure moods either.

Mixed I dunno, from what I experienced with that is that mania is playing the key role or depression is playing the key role. In what Indescribed I was manic the while time just a progression, so it makes sense to me to call it dysphoric mania rather than mixed. Or if it were depression at that stage than agitated depression makes sense to me. Just the mania or depression intensifying to that level. Or perhaps it's jyst tuely exhauated from the choas and distress by that point. Too bad crumbelling is not a real term for it. It is like when the cookie crumbles.. crumble pie... maybe I am just hungry.

Yes it's one episode the way I see it. I think I break up the stages as markers for myself. First..I am ok, second stage... not really ok, third stage... I am really not ok at all.

I was just more curious if anyone else follows this kind of pattern, and if the way I have always viewed it makes sense. Or if I was off in lalalnd thinking I ever experienced hypo at one stage. I think we are on the same page I think that is it, one distinction between the two mania may just stop at the hypo stage for ll and for l it just keeps accelerating.

I have been well for a long time. I hope *knock on wood* to not expect to be in this cycle again ever or at least not for a long long time. I pretty much know what to expect should I not be well. For years and years I pretty much followed the same pattern. Not that the severity didn't suprize me each time. You know you have been there before, but you can foget how bad it actually feels to be there.

[Anika.]

Originally Posted by Miguel'smom

I can't tell, it seems to be the level of functioning that distinguish between hypo and manic. Who know's the functionality of the episode? How would you know whether your functioning well or not?

My T was very clear that I need to start taking my PRN, sleep and slow down. I feel fine besides not feeling I can understand English (my first language) it all just sounds to me right now. I guess she thinks I'm (hypo)manic.

Over the years I got much better at gauging my functioning. Some of my functioning is quite obvious, if I could not make dinner, or do any of my regular household duties, things that I would normally be perfectly fine doing. And also that my not doing them was not because I didn't feel like doing it...couldn't get motivated etc ( for mania at least ) . But because I actually could not do them. Could not stand still, could not concentrate, could not figure out how to etc.

I don't know if that would help you MM. I don't know what type of functioning you are trying to rate. If it is other type of functioning.. like being rational, functioning in relations with other people etc that is a whole lots harder to meassure.

I hope you feel better soon.