manic swtich

Woke up this morning and BOOM: hypomanic. The world is a weird and magical place.

What is your manic switch like? Overnight mood change or slow over the course of days/weeks?

I think I'm sort of in the middle. Quick to be hypo but that state lasts a while before going full blown.

All of the above.

When I was in my 20s, unmedicated, I had more of a tendency to slowly rise to mania having been in a hypomanic state for weeks or even months. Once I hit my 30s, my hypomanic periods were brief before full blown manias set in. Nowadays, in my mid-later 40s, I'm fairly well medicated. I either have brief hypomanias that either resolve themselves without reaching full mania, or my psychiatrist is able to squash them quickly with medication adjustments.

The last time I became full blown manic with psychosis was last May 2018. That developed with anxious hypomania over two weeks then turned full blown only during its last four days before my psychiatrist put it out. I think the only reason it became full blown then was because of the stress of travel in Portugal without access to my psychiatrist. The airports were the final trigger to psychosis. I almost didn't make it on the plane home and my poor husband was crying and scared that day. He had forced me to take "as needed" Seroquel. I was willing because my mood was more excruciatingly painful than pleasant. "As needed" medications on top of my regular cocktail have helped keep me out of the hospital these last eight years. So have the many same day emergency appointments my psychiatrist has given me. I'm lucky!

I also have clear hypomanic-like mood "blips", as I call them, that can come out of nowhere at any time. Often my evening meds stop them in their tracks. Hubby makes sure I take them. He can almost always tell what's happening.

P. S. I've attached a photo of my parrot's favorite picture in our house. It's actually just a framed poster. He's somehow strangely drawn to it. We're not sure if it's because of Kafka's eyes or Prague. The translation of the French is "Prague do we let go...the little mother has claws."

For my long episodes its a Slow process to hypo and then mania normally. Then I have an instant switch to even more extreme mania which consists of me making plans and an attempt within 6 to 12hrs. that lasts a few days but by then i have tried and ended up on the psych ward if I got caught before hurting myself or im in medical recovering and being watched 24/7 so I just spend the rest of those days being angry and telling everyone how bad i wanted to die and trying to find a way to do it in hospital. Then I usually cycle back and forth super fast for a few days followed by depresion that all of a sudden is just gone. Like ill be laying in bed and suddenly feel fine and get up like i was never depressed

For rapid cycling its all fairly quick switches but no full mania only hypo

That happens to me very frequently, usually after(not surprisingly) a good nights sleep, wake up feeling a little odd and within and hour or so hypo here we go.
In fact, though rare for me, if i sleep in late, the second i wake up i get a little panicky now cause i know there's a %80 chance i'll be hypo for who knows how long

Hey Franz, I had that happen about 10 days ago, popped up huge overnight and just as you said, the world became a magical wonderful place. In hindsight I wasn't sleeping enough in the days prior (weeks and months to be honest) but did catch me off guard. Swore it wouldn't happen and nothing was wrong with it, but have since crashed and very depressed now. Have felt better some in the evenings some nights but daytime has sucked. Sleeping way too much, little energy, sex drive shut off (not a bad thing, had gotten out of hand), can't seem to cook or clean and those things had been going great. Am now kinda concerned this is the 'coming down' from the past few months and mostly was elevated during those months. Thought I had insulated myself enough with exercise daily and some other behavioral stuff but I guess not. For what it's worth, the pop up happened one or two days after a huge temperature spike that followed a huge 'polar vortex' for a few days. Was like a 70 degree shift in one day. I dunno. In general if I've gotten fully manic, it's always gradual but in this case and many times before, I had a big overnight shift into hypo though in hindsight was pretty high on the hypo scale. I actually slept well that night but when I woke up was enlightened, energy coming out of my hands, etc. Such a wonderful feeling. Totally gone now almost as if that energy stuff I felt was actually energy leaving my body and that makes sense now. Taking care of myself best can managed a shower and ate a few times small meal but also had a zonked out nap for a couple hours earlier and I think I slept about 5 seperate times yesterday. It will get better or at least can accept it for what it is and take care of self.

In the past, what do you do to manage things when this happens, and so forth. Do you tend to level back out, or go into depression? No two instances are the same but just wondered.

I'm going to see how next few days go and if still way down, probably reduce lamictal some temporarily, my brain isn't working quite right at moment but pretty sure I've done that before and it did help ease things back into homeostasis. At moment I'm heading back to couch bc shower exhausted me lol. But it did feel good.

Take care of yourself.

I switch into hypomania literally overnight, and it can be very dramatic by coming from the most dark place the night place the night before to pure euphoric hypomania upon waking. Usually my pdoc steps in and stops mania but occasionally it can not be stopped quickly. Hypomania tends to become mania within a few weeks.

One thing that I've learned with clozapine is that it can shut down that kind of mood shift. last summer I had a hypo day that was escalating rapidly toward manic and I emailed my pdoc at 3 AM begging to be allowed to up my dose for a few days to try to stop it (we're trying not to go higher for a daily dose because of sedation). One day stopped it. I was really groggy for 4 days and then stopped the med and the mania was gone and I did not get depressed or mixed. It's magical and nothing has ever done that for me before.

It usually sneaks up on me! But by the time it’s noticed, it’s sometimes too late!

When I was unmedicated I would cycle quite rapidly. Insomnia is my biggest trigger. After a sleepless night I often got hypomanic.

Now when I'm on meds I can get mild hypomania if I sleep less than 4 hours, but it goes away if I get sleep the next night. Last November I got hypomanic because I was stressed and slept 3-6 hours a night for a week. it felt so amazing, I was so excited for everything and euphoric at times but also had some anxiety too. I wasn't taking my meds too regularly, and after a few days I stopped sleeping at all and the euphoria started turning into dysphoria. That was when I knocked myself out with meds and got some sleep and more stable.

So usually it happens overnight or during few days. When I was not on meds, the depression would also hit me during one day. The worst feeling ever, falling from the heights and hitting the rock bottom.

Slow enough that I don't realize the difference and fast enough that other people can't help before something bad happens.

into hypomania--giddy, chatty, anxious hypomania--quick, when sleep is a problem. into full on, in your face 'please, commit him!'-type problems...much slower, thank God.

the worst thing about anxious hypomania is the on edge, twitchy anxiety, for me. the good thing...now and then, i get something extra done, which is...well, better than nothing.

how's clozapine treating you? with luvox on board, are you sedated to the max, or is it OK?

sorry things are rough in your world, right now. :-)

I wake up manic.
I’m rarely hypomanic. It is just a stepping stone to mania.
That being said I was hypomanic for all of last week.

What's non manic?

I'm manic, out of control manic, and depressed. That's my rotation 24/7. That's my life and I have no memory of being anything different than I am today. I've been Bipolar 1 the entire time.