[elevatedsoul]

is it possible for it to be bipolar if your moods swing by triggers up and down within minutes or hours

or sometimes being triggered into depression lasting weeks

i do have MDD

and they dx me with bipolar one time but i disagreed with it because of my symptoms and the way i feel and how medications effect me...

i feel like its more of a borderline personality issue... but they wont talk to me about borderline personality...

and im having trouble getting in with a therapist due to transportation problems..

[Travelinglady]

I think so. I know I am bipolar and have actually been laughing one minute and crying the next.

[~Christina]

BP and bpd can both be a problem. Every Bipolar person I know has some bpd tendencies.

Yes up one min and crying the next, total suckage

[north-polar-coaster]

I'm unmedicated due to having no diagnosis (pending...), but I've been doing the cry and laugh thing since last Thursday. My triggers are stress, so I don't know...

[Questionable Quokka]

Originally Posted by elevatedsoul

is it possible for it to be bipolar if your moods swing by triggers up and down within minutes or hours

or sometimes being triggered into depression lasting weeks

From what I've read/experienced, yes that kind of rapid cycling ("switching") does happen.
As I understand it, the downs can last months, even years in some folk.
The worst I've had recently was a near-instant (<5 mins) from intense hypo to such a severe down I lost a day - no memory of it at all.
I'm starting to understand my particular swings a bit more now with the aid of some quite detailed journaling.

I found myself crying while manic. I was arguing w/the psychiatrist, how can I be manic when I’m crying (I said while crying). He said I was in a mixed state.

Just minutes before, I was happily playing him a video of me playing the piano. I’m an excellent pianist, but who plays videos of themselves for their doctor? He tells me I’m manic, I disagree, and he says, “Oh, you’re Manic.” Which then made me start crying.

Later I realized how off all of that was, and all the weird things I had done. I was all over the place.

[elevatedsoul]

sigh...

i hate it because i get so confused because i don't know whats causing me so much distress... the only thing i know for sure is i have c-ptsd...

one thing that i just cant understand though is with bipolar... all these medicines i have been on why haven't they helped...

i mean the ones im on now help a little but im just giving up on looking for anything further because im not trying to make it worse again by adding anything new...
when they added saphris last time i just ended up getting more depressed to the point i was getting triggered left and right and becoming suicidal and ready to walk myself into the emergency room to go to the hospital because i couldnt cope with the pain anymore...

im on effexor, gabapentin, topamax, vistiril, prazosin, (blood pressure and cholestorl meds) now i think thats all... and dont wanna change any besides trying to get vyvanse...

i have a lot of dissociative symptoms

usually im fine until i get around stimuli... dealing with all of my problems causes me the most issues

Have you done DBT before? Based on what you're describing, I think it could really help, whether you have borderline, bipolar, or something else.

Medicines only do so much anyway. They never work 100% of the time, sadly. So we need healthy coping mechanism for when our medicines don't work.

[NatsukiKuga]

Originally Posted by bluebicycle

Have you done DBT before? Based on what you're describing, I think it could really help, whether you have borderline, bipolar, or something else.

Medicines only do so much anyway. They never work 100% of the time, sadly. So we need healthy coping mechanism for when our medicines don't work.

This.

Cycles come, and cycles go, and we can all have long, medium, and short-term cycles overlain one atop the other.

It's a hell of a thing to make it through the triple-whammy, let me tell you.

So what do you do? You're a human being. Humans use tools. So you use tools. You do your DBT. You see your tdoc. You see your pdoc. You get over your punk-*** fears and you take your medicines as prescribed. You get enough sleep. You get enough exercise. You get enough alone time.

And it still sucks donkey ****. It's still a misery. But it gives you one more day of activities to focus on.

And it just might keep you around for the longer term.

[WildcatVet]

I have rapid fire swings, sometimes mixed...laughing, then crying...every few days. Sometimes all within one day. I get so tired trying to keep up...

[Shazerac]

I swing up and down and all around. I gave up trying to track my moods years ago because it would be a full time job.