[Blueberrybook]

It seems when I first started this journey into the psych system, I was very slow cycling, and mostly depressed. As the years have gone by, I've noticed my cycling having a tendency to usually be more rapid. Is this the result of 10 years misdiagnosed with depression and given the wrong meds? Or due to aging or life stressors? I still have periods of my cycling being slower, but sometimes now I am mixed or rapid cycling. Have any of you experienced this?

I've noticed this too. I started off in my teens cycling slowly, then I was cycling on a weekly/monthly basis for years, and the past 4 years or so I've had one or two episodes a year that last for a couple months. I don't really know why, because I was on meds during the rapid cycling and was off meds for much of the past few years and life stressors haven't had much of an effect. My cycling seems to have a mind of its own.

I find I have spells where it seems to speed up. Generally it's not all that fast.

I wonder too if it is partly memory and perception. It was many years before I was dx'd (despite evidence a-plenty!). When I look back, I remember the big ones, so they seem further apart. I obviously was paying no attention whatsoever to my cycling since I had no clue. So maybe my perception isn't entirely accurate about the past, you know?

ETA, My memory is still pretty short on cycling. Again, I remember the big ones, but can be surprised if I look back at writing (like here, which I've done to construct a mood chart).

[~Christina]

Until this past year I would only have 1-3 mood shifts a year and not all were terrible.

I’m in a depressive rage for almost a year now

[pirilin]

Never. It's the only thing that I do slowly. I was in a zhitty depression for three long years.
I've been my hyper self for almost a year now. And hope to die like this.
The drastic reduction we made in pills and variety, worked much better than the seven meds I was on for years.
I also disobeyed the 'net, and the horrible comments about SSRIs that the armchair doctors dare to insist on, and took Paxil. I had nothing to loose. I didn't even have a life.

We (the Real Doctor and I) reduced the Lamictal to non therapeutic levels. Which I wish to eliminate completely, but she does not let me. I'm at 50mg.
Eliminated the Xanax, the Trazodone, the Lithium and the Ambien, I started to lift my head above the gutter.
Took my first Paxil pill with a scared feeling, a rarity in me. 20mg. For 10 days. Nothing.
30mg for 2 days. She thinks I took it for another ten days.
I asked to be reduced to 10mg. Which is what I'm taking now.
Also .75mg of Klonopin and that completes my medical needs now. All she wrote.
I can prescind of the Pin, and I do many times, but I'm still scared to leave The Big Bad Wolf. I take it as religion every night.
I'm I hyper?, yes. I was born like that. Do I sleep well?. No. Never did. That is me. The real deal.

[scatterbrained04]

I've noticed my cycling speeds up and slows down all the time. When I was younger, I had long periods of normal moods. Several years, in fact. That was before I was diagnosed.

Now it seems I cycle more quickly over the last 7 years. Every once in a while, I'll have periods of time I'll cycle very rapidly for a few weeks, and then it slows back down again. Sometimes I wonder if meds and things play into cycling more quickly. But around the time I was diagnosed and put on meds, I had a bad mixed episode for the first time. So maybe the course of my bipolar was changing anyway.