[Blitter2014]

I was answering a thread this afternoon about cycling. It occured to me that I seem to have both slow cycling and rapid cycling, if that is possible

The rapid cycling happens on a weekly or biweekly basis, but is usually either from depressed to more depressed or depressed to normal (as normal as I will ever be anyways), or normal to high.

But then looking at my life overall, there are the slow cycles which happen over a year or even longer. For instance, in the last 10 years there has been three distinct times where I crashed and burned, mentally then physically, and could not work - leading to the logical complications. In between those lows has been the high points, where I was a super achiever, could take on anything and coped with everything life threw at me.

Has anyone else noticed this or am I just slow to notice in myself what others already know?

[sui generis]

yeah I kinda relate. Over the years I just had recurrent depression and some hints of hypomania but since a couple of years ago I noticed maybe one hypomanic episode in a year and little subthreshold hypomanias while also having my usual 2 to 4 month depressive episode *sigh*

However this year things have gotten a lot worse. I had a 6-7 month long depression (started late last year) that was severe most of the time; first time that it has been that long and severe. There were two hypomanic episodes that I identified that broke through within that depressive episode. I had two normal months then became depressed again. This month I have been cycling between normal, hypo and depressed. This has never happened to me before and while I'm cycling quickly, it's not emotional. It's very alien and outside my control but I am just riding with it and getting help as that's all I can do really.