Super Short Cycles

I have super super short and super sharp emotional cycles. I'm usually in a mixed state but I'll have these random cycles of very intense mania or horrible depression that last a couple hours to a couple days.

Is this bipolar or something else? Nothing sets these off, and they are incredibly strong (euphoria during mania, complete suicidal obsession during depression)

Sounds like it, I can never figure out what sets me off either

I cycle frequently, I'm getting better at working with it. i can tell when I'm ramping up over the course of a few days. i take a prn once (or two or three times) and tell someone. That helps shorten the pending blurred reality, and I get asked if I'm taking meds (I can tell 3-4 days in advance I'm going to do the "I'm not taking them anymore" thing, or that I'll get paranoid about them. The last time, I missed a couple doses because "my bottles had been switched out". The euphoria prior to that though is amazing, the last time I had it a month or so ago felt like a peak life moment. Only lasted about a day. I totally predicted "in three or four days I'm going to wake up really slowed down, flat affect, and want/need to stay in bed all day". I was right. A friend had a bday party I had really been excited about earlier in the week. I went but sat there almost motionless and barely talked. But I went! Stayed on meds, and was a little brighter each of the next few days. Then I went back into low-grade hypo, which is where I've mostly been for a couple weeks, with the occasional "I need to stay in bed all day I feel like there's a glass wall between me and the world". But I don't anymore. I force myself to go to work, even if I ask to leave a few hours early. The continued structure of work Monday thru Friday is really really helping me. I'm sorry you've had SI during the depressed times. I had a lot of that last winter when was stuck in depression for a couple months. i think I'm very seasonal. I don't think I'll have depression for more than a couple days at a time now until september or so. Then the depression risk goes way up. last year really scared me with the SI. Plus I was not working because I couldn't function well enough too. Are you taking meds? Are you exercising? Are you eating well, even if have to force self? Are you going to bed at same time/getting up at same time everyday? These things, I think, are just as important as meds. But you can learn to manage it. Identify your patterns and plan ahead. I'm nowhere near it yet, but am convinced I can master this. I don't know that the cycling is ever going to stop, and I get unclear answers from MD/therapist. But we talk more about managing it and functioning thru it. That is the goal.

You could be ultra-ultra rapid cycling bipolar, or you could have BPD. It's possible that you have triggers and don't realize them. (I'm just playing devil's advocate to help you out.)

What kinds of things do you do when you're manic?

The shortest I know is 11" high. Hard to ride. They say.

You know, you're really not that funny.

I too can have multiple cycles within a single day, or cycles that are intense and last only days, with something as simple as a song triggering the change

I think the best thing I ever did was to take an inventory job because we carpooled so it was practically impossible to walk off the job. I eventually learned how to fight through the rough times, soul crushing as they were, until is got suspended for being way too late too many mornings in a row and taking too many cigarette breaks--coping mechanism, but that's when I went and got my first prescription for lamictal. Thank you science! It was like waking from a very long nightmare that you could call 12 years without mess.

Without meds!

When not medicated my cycles are all over the place. I have bipolar and not BPD but I go though mixed episodes a lot.

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I have a super short cycle, talked to my psychiatrist about it, and yes he said it's bipolar. Could be different with you though, better ask the pros about this.

I'm an ultra-rapid cycler, too. I can have a brief mixed episode that lasts a couple hours. I usually take some Xanax or Bee Pollen and it will help shorten it. When I'm hypomanic, I only notice it in short bursts and the rest of time I feel normal. With depression, it can last a couple hours or a couple days, but I don't feel the anguish of depression all day every day. I guess my medication makes the feelings less intense and gives me more of a "normal" feeling in between brief episodes.

BP 2, OCD, GAD
Lithium, Trileptal, Latuda, Risperdal, Xanax