Someone asked me how I could be Bipolar having not had a manic episode for 5 years. The extreme moods I deal with are Anxiety and very bad Depression. It is the latter that has landed me in the hospital twice in the last 4 years.

The answer I gave them is management by good medication and patient care - at least the mania is anyways. Do others share this experience? The eradication of one extreme mood for the exaggeration of another?

Truth be told, I would prefer it the other way around.

I don't get "pure" hypo/mania anymore. I either get dysphoric mania or depression. No ifs, ands, or buts.

I know how you feel... You feel cheated when you don't get hypo/mania, especially since you've only been getting depression.

I feel like I've been teased with my mixed episodes. It's like "yay hypomania....... and depression ". I get the surge of energy, racing thoughts, productivity, and the little need for sleep that comes with hypomania... but all those racing thoughts are negative. I also feel horribly depressed, worthless, guilty, and irritable. It sucks.

[Icare dixit]

It seems to be how it works: if you have more severe mania you have at least shorter periods of depression, relative to the length of the period of mania.

I'm also interested how often this is true.

It's about contrasts, I believe.

Do you have hypomania instead of mania, any shorter periods of either, or nothing like it at all? Do you have sudden anxiety or panic attacks or continuously?

[Icare dixit]

I wish I had fewer periods of mania and periods hypomania again. Hopefully when I get more used to stability I get periods of hypomania instead of mania again.

As it is, I prefer depression to mania or at least a mild mixed state where I know when I'm manic. But that's so tiring and my memory gets so bad that it's also quite hopeless. At least my perceptual changes are less severe now when in a mild mixed state than they used to be.

[Gabyunbound]

My pdoc, who specializes in Bipolar, told me that she has patients who haven't had a manic episode for years, that this definitely happens. I don't know if these same patients have frequent depressive episodes, though, she seemed to be talking more of symptom free patients for years on end until something (stress, especially lack of sleep) triggers a manic episode.

In any case, I think you're definitely not alone in this.

[wildflowerchild25]

It's been two years since my last mania. Invega puts the kaibosh on any inklings of mania. I do still suffer from frequent depression. I've had ECT twice in the past two years for unrelenting black depression. I've been stable for three months since my last depression. I was heading toward hypomania when I first started emsam but it was put down within a day. The last hypomania I had was September after I started taking Sam-e supplement. It lasted for about a week. It was great!

I don't miss mania at all but I do miss hypomania. Hypomania for me is euphoric and productive and generally excellent. But I don't mind being stable either. And I definitely don't miss mania. Mania always devolves into a mixed episode and possible psychosis for me so I'd much rather stay away.

[st0psign]

I'm like blue, I get dysphoric mania or depression. I have very little time when I'm hypo and even that's kind of negative for me. I never get that happy euphoric mania everyone's always talking about.

[BipolaRNurse]

I get the happy, productive hypomania. I went through one from late February through mid-April this year and enjoyed myself tremendously. I love being hypomanic...it's when it turns on me and becomes mania that things go sideways. That didn't happen this time, thankfully...my meds saved me from it, as well as the black depressions that suck the life out of me and make me want to die. (I was mildly depressed through most of the winter, but it was nothing compared with the episode that landed me in the hospital a year and a half ago.) Seasonality has a lot to do with my mood cycling.

[annmaria]

As I have recently been diagnosed BP1, how long does it take to understand your mood cycle.

I know that I have gone from months of mania to now months of depression. I am having good days and terrible days. I am hoping for baseline, so that I can feel like I am living with some normality.

Can someone explain hypomanic\manic cause I don't understand, thanks in advance.

Annmaria

I feel completely stable since being put on the Invega. My hypos are euphoric, productive good times ones. I haven't had one in years it feels like. My manias go mixed really quick anymore. Haven't had that either. I was depressed this winter, but nothing like the deep dark depressions I used to get. Feels good being stable.... I'm finally getting used to it.

Originally Posted by Icare dixit

Do you have hypomania instead of mania, any shorter periods of either, or nothing like it at all? Do you have sudden anxiety or panic attacks or continuously?

I do experience periods of elation; heightened sexuality, heightened ability to enjoy myself, the world speeding up, the need and thirst to experience things, extreme creativity, and of course the need to spend money. I imagine I am a much better person to be around too. Still, there seems to be a limit to this great mood and, unlike mania, I have a high degree of control.

Great anxiety has always been a problem that I have had all my life. Great therapy (CBT) and some good medication have been of recent success.

Perhaps it is the lack of anxiety mixed with the lack of elation that combine to worsen the depression as that is all that's left.

[MusicLover82]

I go from periods of stability for a few days or a week (which sometimes includes very mild hypomania for brief spurts) to mixed (?) episodes of moderate to severe anxiety, mild depression, and moderate to severe OCD. It sucks. My pdoc is working on getting this under control. I just started on Abilify a week ago, and so far it has helped a LOT for several days. My moods are still cycling though, so when I see my pdoc, I'll let him know my symptoms and see if he wants to increase the Abilify. I'm so ready to be more stable.