What does a mixed episode feel like for you?

Beauty From Despair · Jun 27, 2011, 05:57 PM

I think I may have been mixed manic since I was a teenager and now I"m 50. Just started on Depakote ER. This is the first time anyone has properly treated BP2, diagnosed 2 years ago. Killer side effects, but my brain feels incredible. Wonder what life will be like with bipolar 2 actually treated. Looking forward to a new normal. Would love to hear from people. Just learning about all this.

Jun 28, 2011, 05:34 PM

Mixed episodes are the hardest times in my life. I mostly feel great depression, like someone that I loved dearly has died and there is no consoleing me. Sprinkled in there is anxiety that takes over and I feel like I'm loosing my mind. I know there is some mania in there somewhere but I tend to remember the depression and anxiety more.

Miss Laura · Jun 28, 2011, 05:44 PM

Hey Beauty from Despair,

I am BP 1 but I experience mixed episodes at times too. I always feel a bit uncertain where I am when in that mood. Like I am not sad/depressed nor am I manic/happy. But then I can spring to depression or mania when it hits me and then the other mood hits me straight after. Kinda like your mind is jumbled up and hasn't got a clue what to think. I usually find in my writing that when I am mixed I will be all jumbled in what I am saying quite contradictory at times and unsure about what I want.

I guess everyone is different in their experiences.

Forgive77 · Jun 28, 2011, 06:35 PM

Anxious and depressed at the same time. =) Like right now. I should be so excited about moving into my new home that I wanted, and moving back home like I wanted....but can't bring myself to decorate or put things away....I get frozen so to speak. Too anxious to focus or move. I change from drinking a coke, to the computer, to smoking, round and round and round, and get nothing done...It's kinda like being paralyzed for me....then throw in some manic anger, and watch me dwell even more. That's what today has been for me.

Jun 28, 2011, 07:08 PM

I have bipolar 1, I suffer from mixed moods often and this is when I am the most suicidal. I get extremely depressed but extremely high energy and racing thoughts, no sleep, and I also get extremely agitated and anxious. I aslo get really bad psychomotor agitation as well. These are they worst episodes for me. All this happens simultaneously for me, completely unbearable.

IheartHendrix · Jun 28, 2011, 08:25 PM

I'm just learning about BP after having to take some mental health assesments for SSDI two showed that I have BP tendencies but the main testing is later on next month. (Don't know how I will wait until then)
Forgive77, what you said REALLY struck a chord with me. How you were describing going from one thing to the next. I feel like I live from one little thing to the next. I make some tea, then I will go smoke, then I will get on the comp, then I will make my tea, smoke... etc little things and avoid the real things that need to get done. Thoughts just spool through my head constantly --- even when I'm depressed. I had doubted what I'd found out about me possibly having BP. . but after reading your post and the replies here I'm starting to wonder.

Forgive77 · Jun 28, 2011, 08:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by IheartHendrix

I'm just learning about BP after having to take some mental health assesments for SSDI two showed that I have BP tendencies but the main testing is later on next month. (Don't know how I will wait until then)
Forgive77, what you said REALLY struck a chord with me. How you were describing going from one thing to the next. I feel like I live from one little thing to the next. I make some tea, then I will go smoke, then I will get on the comp, then I will make my tea, smoke... etc little things and avoid the real things that need to get done. Thoughts just spool through my head constantly --- even when I'm depressed. I had doubted what I'd found out about me possibly having BP. . but after reading your post and the replies here I'm starting to wonder.

Glad to help. It's always good to hear there's someone out there just like you even if you don't have it.

IheartHendrix · Jun 28, 2011, 09:09 PM

I know, it does!

Sunshine1992 · Jun 28, 2011, 09:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Forgive77

Anxious and depressed at the same time. =) Like right now. I should be so excited about moving into my new home that I wanted, and moving back home like I wanted....but can't bring myself to decorate or put things away....I get frozen so to speak. Too anxious to focus or move. I change from drinking a coke, to the computer, to smoking, round and round and round, and get nothing done...It's kinda like being paralyzed for me....then throw in some manic anger, and watch me dwell even more. That's what today has been for me.

Everything you said is everything i go through...It can be a very crazy time inside my head....

mokie · Jun 28, 2011, 09:47 PM

My mixed episodes are I am happy and do too many things at once and not able to complete any but my racing thoughs are of depression, guilt, worthless, useless, suicidal, cause I can see I am not accomplishing anything so I can't be the detailed person that I like to be. Irritable, oh that is me most of the time a walking time bomb.

Confusedinomicon · Jun 29, 2011, 02:25 AM

I get really bad paranoia, racing thoughts, and agitation and my self confidence plummets. I don't feel suicidal, but I feel like my existence is pointless. I feel more energetic, have pressured speech, but I feel really tired at the same time.

Since I've been mediated for the most part I haven't experienced full-on mania.

Beezup2 · Jun 29, 2011, 07:26 PM

It's so much and my worst, too. It's the "head" thing - just too much going on inside and I feel "overstimulated" by noises, voices, too attentive to my environment. Agitation is worse and I either rapid cycle in a day or feel super edgy with undercurrents of depression at the same time. I could scream!

jack123 · Jun 29, 2011, 09:45 PM

I just went through a mixed episode. It was the worst. No sleep, racing thoughts and suicidal feelings. I am weaning off of celexa now. Starting to feel a little better but more on the depressed side now. Hope everything works out for you.

dejavu65 · Jun 30, 2011, 09:48 AM

I am mostly depressed but when I get mixed ... I am happy and then racing thoughts of depression, guilt, worthless, useless, suicidal ... a lot like mokie described ... then a sudden feeling of deep sorrow like just finding out someone close passed away and tears start flowing down my cheeks. Then within 10 minutes back to happy. It is awful and scary at the same time. It is like being lost in a world that you know is not real.

mokie · Jun 30, 2011, 11:37 AM

dejavu65,
it is scary. I can't keep up with myself at times. I could be having a cheerful conversation and then just start to cry over things, sometimes I don't even know what I am crying about. At least I have a loving husband and daughter who understand.

dejavu65 · Jun 30, 2011, 12:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mokie

dejavu65,
it is scary. I can't keep up with myself at times. I could be having a cheerful conversation and then just start to cry over things, sometimes I don't even know what I am crying about. At least I have a loving husband and daughter who understand.

You are so right ... I never know why it starts. But it is the deepest sorrow you can imagine. I hate that someone else goes through this but again it is nice to know that you are not alone in this.

mokie · Jun 30, 2011, 01:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dejavu65

You are so right ... I never know why it starts. But it is the deepest sorrow you can imagine. I hate that someone else goes through this but again it is nice to know that you are not alone in this.

Yes I to hate for anyone to go through any of this but am glad as well that I am not alone.

IdoubtIT · Jul 01, 2011, 01:09 AM

Its like being a spring wound so tight you could snap at anything. I once went from making a farewell speech for my brother at a pub with 10 friends and family to moments later destroying the toilet paper dispenser in the bathroom. I think mixed episodes are dangerous because that manic energy can manifest in violence more often than a regular manic episode. BTW - I think technically in DSMIV a mixed episode puts you in the BP1 category, but what do they know?

Phoenix_1 · Jul 05, 2011, 09:33 PM

Hi jack123
I just came off celexa after 5 years. The pdoc put me on imipramine, at my request, and in 2 weeks I was soaring, wow I felt good mania on the run. I was cycling with the celexa too but was just totally unaware of what I was doing. It kinda made me unaware of everything. It's hard to explain. But in the 5 years I was on it, I had 12 jobs, fired from most, quit a few. The pdoc just diagnosed my BP 2 last week and added lithium to the imipramine. I'm still kinda manic, but now I'm manic, depressed, and pissed off all at the same time. I see him Thursday to get my meds adjusted. If you don't mind my asking, are you taking a mood stabilizer or something else with the anti-d?

Quote:

Originally Posted by jack123

I just went through a mixed episode. It was the worst. No sleep, racing thoughts and suicidal feelings. I am weaning off of celexa now. Starting to feel a little better but more on the depressed side now. Hope everything works out for you.

nycgurl · Jul 07, 2011, 01:43 PM

So, this is what a "mixed episode" is. I am incredibly depressed and unable to do much, but I am so anxious that I literally feel like my body is electric. Like I can feel electricity coursing through my veins. So hard to explain and so hard to understand. BP II, btw.

I_cantThinkOf_aName · Nov 05, 2017, 05:20 AM

I'm in a mixed episode now and chaos is the only word I can think of to describe it. Everything about me is conflicting. I need sleep, I feel it, but I can't. I close my eyes and its like im fighting my own body, I feel my muscles trying to open them while im telling them to close. Ultimately I lose. My anxiety is everywhere. Everything I do or want to do or have done, its all racing through my head and clashing together. I can't think but at the same time I feel like i'm thinking about everything all at once. I want nothing but to sleep the day away but then the next thing I know, I've spent the last 3 hours organizing my room which eventually ends uo with everything from my drawers scattared all around my room. I'll look at the mess and be so overwelmed that i'll have to sit down and distrct myself which turns into spending 3 hours of making several graphic design art projects on my phone that I never end up complete. All the while I'm thinking about how my life is falling appart. My anxious racing mind blasts everything I need to do to get my life together while also reminding myself that I'm a failure for not getting up and doing those tasks. My mixed episodes can be depicted similarly to when i try to organize. It's like my tornado brain is making everything in my life as jumbled as my thoughts. I don't know what else to say and i honestly dont even know if I made sense but thats a mixed state for ya!

RomanJames2014 · Nov 09, 2017, 12:24 PM

Soooo....

I never knew what a mixed episode was. I thought that I was just "Manicly Depressed".

I have been experiencing a mixed mood episode. After crashing into a depression for the last two months due to a manic summer, I now know that the way I feel right now is called a mixed mood episode. My therapist helped me figure this out when I had explained to her that I feel burst of confidence and radiant euphoria and then get angry and hostile and defend Kevin Spacey because I feel bad for him.

They're not fun. I feel tormented and crazy. I am ontop of the world but anxious. I once read a book about Anne Boleyn where the last days of her life were (what I think of as) a stress induced mixed mood episode.