[BPgf]

After a long period manic or hypomanic, do/did you come down gradually, or do/did you crash quickly into depression? Or did you transition into something else for a time, like mixed? What was the longest this entire process lasted for you in the past (both extremes and transition combined, before leveling out)? I've read that sometimes it can take over a year!

[SingDanceRunLife]

I always crash. Hard, fast and deep into a depression. My T and pdoc and I have all figured it out, that that's how it works for me, so when I get hypomanic/manic, they know to watch me for the fall and prepare for it.

I don't really know what the longest period of time the process lasted for me was, but definitely at least a couple months.

[Ocean Swimmer]

The worst for me was black mania. It's a horrible state where you have the manic crazy no sleep no eat and are depressed at the same time. I stay up a week. Then start losing track with any sort of reality. I remember talking to the cat and telling her for sure I was going to cut all my hair off. I stopped taking my meds. Didn't think I could hold my pee. In hospital wore a diaper. No one changed it until my husband did it when he came to visit.I still wouldn't eat. They had an iv in my arm giving me some liquid nourishment. They were trying to stabilize me here in Costa Rica so I could go on the plane ride home. By then I was so doped up I didn't remember the trip home. Then I went into a CA hospital. Then they started weekly ECT (brain Fry). It lasted about 6 months. I was admitted to hospital every other month. With the drugs and ECT I don't remember anything. I know this year will be better. It's still a drag to have bipolar.
Maxy

[Wanderlust90]

Black mania is the universes idea of a sick joke. Give me that euphoric mania that's better than any drug.

[BeyondtheRainbow]

I always get mixed. This year has been different than I've ever had before: one continuous cycle. I think I was depressed first then very agitated mixed then meds helped some and more depressed then there were issues with meds and I had to come off some and I was severely depressed for longer than I have ever been with occasional pops into mixed for a few days or a week and now I'm severely mixed and very cranky and emotional. I've cried over everything in the last few weeks (not helped by being sick since the 24th) and been paranoid and angry. Being sick probably kept me from getting more out of control. I hopefully will start to respond to my new med just about one year exactly from when this mess started. Right now I feel like the mixed is becoming more and more labile. I almost started crying trying to make a decision in a store yesterday and again today I couldn't figure out which tea bags i wanted (first I wanted ones that had caffeine so it was good I noticed that) and they were too expensive to get both kinds at that store and it was completely beyond my coping skills.

[HALLIEBETH87]

I seem to go mixed more often than manic

[Hashi/bipolar mom]

Mixed most of the time, then major manic episode, and then a hard crash into depression/suicidal thinking.

[Pastel Kitten]

It used to be a hard, sudden crash into depression after euphoric hypomania but recently I experienced a mixed episode/dysphoric hypomania which is atypical for me.