[muffinhead]

I've had days when I feel depressed but also still feel some drive and excitement to do things, and have been wondering if this is something like a mixed episode. Please elaborate on your own personal experience with mixed episodes.

[Mountainbard]

Mixed for me includes anxiety and a lot of anger. I feel frustrated. I'm not motivated but I'm restless. Everything is just a little off kilter. Depression is the worst, but mixed episodes are a fairly close second in the sucky sweepstakes.

[MattBemis]

I get super anxious and my mood changes at the drop of a hat. I can be doing something and motivated and out of nowhere I'll get too anxious to move and I'm not able to do anything but lay in my bed, too anxious to fall asleep. Mixed episodes suck.

[Goldcrest]

Some of my mixed episodes are like you say, depressed but with drive and excitement to do things. Often feel agitated or anxious while engaged in over-the-top activity, but always with depression as undercurrent.

[jacky8807]

For me they are the worst...pure hell
I cant even describe them..up and down at the same time and i get suicidal ideation

[kashiekey]

I didn't know there was such thing as a mixed episode! This explains so much. I'll be extremely hyperactive and motivated and extremely anxious at the same time. It's a really disturbing feeling and I had no idea what was happening.

[Creative1onder]

I think Mixed episodes are worst part of Bipolar disorder. I get high anxiety, agitation, restlesness, irritable. I think can feel/act suicidal in mixed episode when have more energy, movement.

[Pikku Myy]

Horrible

[BipolaRNurse]

Mixed episodes are hellish. As much as I hate my depressions, my mixed states are extreme and I have suicidal ideation along with the energy to do something about it (although I've never carried it out, obviously).

Of course, straight depression makes me suicidal at times too, and I was recently inpatient for that. I'm glad I went---today I found a bottle of my sister's Methadone and flushed them. I thought about holding onto them just in case things get bad again, but I realized it was a bad, bad idea and got rid of them. A month ago I probably would've taken a bunch of them and died. Or wish I had.

I feel depressed and hopeless but highly agitated and extremely restless/irritable but at the same time with low motivation but loads of energy. I've just been through one recently and was describing it like a beetle stuck on it back where its going round and round at increasing speed but it isn't capable of moving anywhere. For me they signal a fast move into a destructive mania. I think we have discovered it is related to antidepressant use and so I am now on Zyprexa which has eased the symptoms a bit.

[Wander]

When I am in a mixed episode I am deeply depressed and suicidal but have a huge amount of agitated energy and cannot rest. It is pure hell, as others here have described. It takes all my strength not to harm myself and several times I have attempted suicide while in this state. Mixed states are incredibly dangerous.

[onionknight]

Awful, the worst. Only during mixed episodes am I truly scared for myself, and I get scared because I'm simultaneously depressed and overwhelmed and impulsive and irritable.

[Tucson]

My worst nightmare, but while awake.

[JamesO2]

Mixed episodes are really scary for me. Like others have said, it's both up and down. Its restless, energized, but still unmotivated and immobile. It's being both hyper active and super anxious.

For me, it can also lead to (or flow to/from) rapid cycling: where I switch from extreme highs and lows very quickly in the span of minutes, multiple times a day.

[Creative1onder]

Do you think people are more at risk of suicide during a severe demonic depressive episode or mixed episode?

[JamesO2]

Originally Posted by Creative1onder

Do you think people are more at risk of suicide during a severe demonic depressive episode or mixed episode?

Hmm. I'm not sure. I guess it depends on the person.

I've attempted suicide multiple times. It's always been in a deep depression, and never in a mixed state.

Though mixed states do give me the urge to crack open my skull with the only intention to "relieve pressure" (the best way I can describe it). But I don't necessarily want to end my life. Just stop the pressure and pain.

[HighOnHotSauce]

For me, I am and a serious risk of completing suicide during a mixed episode. And oh, I agree with many of the previous posters that mixed episodes are the worst. I do have full blown Manic episodes as well as periods of prolonged depression, but I regularly have mixed episodes as well. I have a lot of energy, but I am filled with rage, intrusive thoughts, and feel like I'm in a cage. I start out hating the world and then I hate me and on a dime I can get seriously suicidal. In the past mixed episodes have led me to some horrible places, I mean, cops, hospitals, detox... etc. because I can get out of control so quickly. This is completely counter to how I am in general. I'm cool headed, analytic.. a laid back easy going kind of guy. Unless I'm in the middle of a mixed episode. It's a Jekyll and Hyde situation.

[nicole84]

I've been in a mixed episode for I'm not sure how long exactly. My pdoc informed me that it was what I was experiencing, primarily mania, but a mixed episode which is causing the depression side.

Where do I start. Currently my brain is going a thousand miles a minute, I feel paranoid but feel like I should be doing something. I actually managed to get some sleep last night but I have days where I don't sleep. I'll be productive but anxious at the same time, I actually went and got drunk the other day just to tone it down, which more or less just made me more manic. I'll get angry out of nowhere, did I already mention agitation? My brain is so mixed up at the moment.

Can basically feel on top of the world but also wanting to die. I haven't been crying, but that can come with it. It's some kind of hell, as mentioned above. Restless, detached feelings, one day I had was actually just the 'good' mania (or so it felt) then paranoia back again.

The prozac I've been on hasn't helped these episodes though as the pdoc said, but I'm coming off of it.

[KristenRenee]

Originally Posted by MattBemis

I get super anxious and my mood changes at the drop of a hat. I can be doing something and motivated and out of nowhere I'll get too anxious to move and I'm not able to do anything but lay in my bed, too anxious to fall asleep. Mixed episodes suck.

Wow what you described is exactly how I have been feeling lately. I can be fine one minute, and the next I just want to lay in bed in a fetal position. When I succumb to that, it is very hard to get out of bed and get going. I never really thought about it being a mixed episode but now I can see that it is. Even with medication, my moods change rapidly. It seems the older I get the worse it gets. I don't know the answer but I just keep on trudging. Wish you well.

[JamesO2]

I've come to learn that nearly all mental illness issues stem from lack of connection.

I had one of my worst mixed episodes yesterday. Why? Because I've had to watch all my friendships deteriorate, my friends relationships are toxic, my family is broken, and worst of all no one listens to me. I try to help but everyone denies there is a problem.

I feel like I am literally talking to a wall. I feel unheard.

You know what helped? Talking to my girlfriend in the phone for three hours about how invisible I feel. Literally just being HEARD was enough to stop the mixed episode. Just letting someone know was enough.

[champagneferret]

They're painful. When I had them I was so depressed o wanted to die, but I was angry about it. I was angry at everything. I would actually try and pick fights with my family because I didn't know what else to do.

[KristenRenee]

I get mixed episodes quiet often. I am extremely irritable, anxious but I lay I lay in bed in a fetal position afraid to move. It's crazy. I thought I was the only one.