Basic description of my rapid cycling bipolar disorder:
When rapid cycling, I will be suddenly flung into mania for 2 or 3 days, then suddenly plummet into a deep depression for 2 or 3 days. I might have a day or two of *normal* mood in between, but sometimes I go right from depression into mania again. Or I will wake up depressed but as afternoon comes along I shift into mania, peaking at night. This makes it difficult to want to go to bed on time or being able to sleep at all. Comes in chunks, week, month.
My manias balance with the depressions almost exactly in length and severity.
I wasn't always a rapid cycler. I used to have episodes lasting weeks or months.
More details about my rapid cycling:
It is hard to make plans or mentally prepare for an event because I have no idea where my mood will fall at any given moment. The ultradian/ultra-rapid tend to come in chunks so I know for a certain while everything will be unpredictable as far as how I will respond or be able to handle stress. The abrupt changes from one mood to the next is exhausting. I feel like I lose track of my true self and at the mercy of my moods, one minute laughing to loudly and the next weeping over some imagined catastrophe. I will make plans for the next day, say a major cleaning project, only to wake up and find I cannot move and the day is a waste. Then bedtime comes and I'm wide awake looking for something to do, only I know I must take lots of meds to sleep or I'll be in worse condition. People think you are moody, immature, a drama queen, crazy. They are confused, avoid you, uncomfortable. One minute you are crazy helpful and busy and the next you are sitting at the table with your head down. It is so much worse than the regular episodes that usually come on slowly. People just think it is part of your personality for a long time. But with rapid cycling, you don't build up into a mood episode, you sling-shotted into the next mood without warning. And when I do get a couple of *normal* days I feel hopeless that it will never end. It does, in a matter of a week or months. Then it comes back again some other month.
Lessons Learned
- When it is cycling I have a high level of agitation that I don't have on days when it is just a day when bad and good things happened. Or, if I am not able to move or think, then I know it is depression and not something that upset.
More I want to share about rapid cycling:
It is my understanding that ultra-rapid cycling/ultradian cycling is like going through the usual cycle but in a condensed time period & mixed is having symptoms simultaneously, but I've had doctors call ultra-rapid/ultradian mixed. What's that about?
My cycles' severity is:
The severity of the moods are high. When rapid cycling, I don't gradually climb into a mood state. It is sudden, abrupt, and severe immediately.
Over time, my rapid cycling is getting:
It was getting worse. A tweaking of my medication has decreased the number of episodes I have.
Rapid cycling has kept me from:
For awhile it was keeping me from being independent and forming a solid relationship with family. No one knew what to expect when I walked into the room. If someone needed to talk to me about something sensitive they didn't know if I'd be flippant, angry, or despondent.
