Rapid cycling, and longer episodes?

[Amy4891]

I rapid cycle lasting hours, or a few days in each or have mixed episodes when it all starts running together, and have longer episodes lasting 3-4 months also. I was wondering is it common for people to do both? I was always under the understanding that you do one or the other, not both. Is this weird, is there anyone else that does this also?

[emeraldjasperthrone888]

it could be a side affect of a medication as well.  talk to the doc

[emeraldjasperthrone888]

tx for your comment. You words teach me for sure.  kelly

[Amy4891]

Count what as psychosis? I did that thing like you said too, with the things out of the corner of your eyes, that seem like a mouse running across the floor.

[Anonymouse88]

They count THAT as psychosis?  

If I'm super tired, I see little black things in the edge of my vision that seems like a mouse running across the floor.  This was bad one finals week when there WAS a mouse in my room, and so half the time I was seeing a mouse running around and the other half of the time just hallucinating it.  I also occasionally hear/feel phantom cell phone rings, but that's pretty common.  

But there are plenty of causes of hallucinations that aren't psychosis.  Oliver Sacks' latest book is called Hallucinations and is a really interesting look at a bunch of those causes (e.g. loss of vision, even partial field cuts, leading to hallucinations in the areas you can't see from the visual cortex basically getting bored and firing on its own).  Apparently hallucinations like these are way more common than we think, because people don't want to admit them for fear of being called crazy.  I guess it's a little more complicated when you have BP, though.

[Amy4891]

I get migraines sometimes too. I am prone to headaches, and get them easily sometimes. I think I had postpartum depression too after I had my daughter, but no doctor ever caught it and neither did I. I didn't even realize that was probably part of my problem until recently now that she is almost 5, lol. Do you know if being pregnant and giving birth can make bipolar worse for women too?

[NotALICE]

I was diagnosed with PMDD years ago, before BP. After my BP diagnosis i started reading up, women with BP disorder can have severe PMS or other heightened symptoms. I have migraines with mine too & a recent study found women with migraines 4 times more likely to suffer from Bipolar Disorder. For me it seems related to BP.

I didn't want to leave the house for the same reasons as you. I'm a bit better now, but had a couple of bad days in a row. Coincidently, yes, hormones are involved, but hurray! No migraines this time. Great effect of my new BP med.

Ok, done with female issues. I had some mild psychosis over a month back - thought someone was behind me, caught a glimpse...no one there. (Ever sleep & proper meds).

I used to drink, and after one bad binge I was detoxing & I swear the toilet bowl was singing to me. It was almost funny even then if I hadn't been so sick. :-p

[Amy4891]

I am actually diagnosed with psychotic features, but for me it is not that bad. I saw some bugs once, I blinked and they were gone, and I knew it was a hallucination when it happened. I have more delusional thoughts, but even those are not that bad for me, and when I have them I always know they are unrealistic. I didn't leave the house for a month more because of social anxiety. I didn't want to be around people, didn't want to be judged, felt embarrassed, etc. I also have PMDD (premenstural dysphoric disorder) and I am sure that can complicate things too.

[stormbear]

I also was manic / hypo through my early 20's then the depression came in to play but i also had some depression around 17 -18 aswell but for the psychosis stuff i had attack's of it when i was a child but become permanent in 1 form or another ranging from mild to severe  when i 25 but it gradually came on .

[stormbear]

What your going through seems to be very simmilar as what i was going through before i got put on lithium . My moods were all over the place there was no consistantcy with them at all. All i know was it is mixed and ultra rapid cycling and then it was overlaping each other but i have psychosis from schizoaffective disorder to which made thing's even more difficult than it already was hearing voice's and thinking snipers were going to shoot me dead that's why i didn't leave the house in a month , but i'm on some new med's now and doing much better my delusions and moods are under control better now :)

[nomeglyttyr]

I can rapid cycle within a day but also have a longer cycle of depression or hypomania that lasts days or weeks. I don't know if it's atypical or not, and it doesn't matter much at the end of the day. Bipolar affects us all differently, and additionally, we all understand how it affects us differently. Someone could have similar symptoms to mine and have a vastly different interpretation of it. I'm not sure if my answer is is the type you were looking for.

[Bubulous]

I know you are bud,
I am too.  I will check out those sites.  I read the information I got out of the DSM IV which is a little hard for me to translate.
I stay in a hypomanic state as well.  I don't really need sleep and I always talk fast and have tons of energy.  I also consider rapid cycling to be cycling from mania to depression in any given day.  My dr told me that wasn't it.
I wish you had a mood tracker so I could see what your weeks and months were like.  You can look at mine and see how I cycle.  The missing times were when I was either using or the recent one was when I fell into a deep depression.

[Amy4891]

Here is a site that shows a graph (the one at the bottom of the page specifically) about rapid cycling that paints a pretty good picture of what I experience with rapid cycling, some of it is purely manic, some of it is purely depressed, and some of it runs together into a mixed state. http://www.psycheducation.org/depression/Waves.htm

Here is one with another good definition. It says it is hard to distinguish the difference from Ultradian cycling from a mixed episode http://bipolar.about.com/cs/faqs/f/faq_rapidcycle.htm

I have also had manic or depressed episodes last 3-4 months, and think I was hypo manic pretty much my whole late teens early 20s.

I am bipolar 1 by the way.

[Bubulous]

Rapid cycling is a little different.  I think you are in a mixed state when you talk about the severe mood swings happening in a day.
Rapid cycling is often thought of as having at least one manic state.  Mixed state is when you display both symptoms of depression and mania at the same time.
I do this a lot.  I always rapid cycle and always have when I was clean.  However until I have a breakthrough of full blown mania I do not go into a mixed state.  The mixed state usually follow a manic spell and lasts for a day or two.  I will start crying for no reason, uncontrollably, then stop and start laughing.  I will feel exhausted and depressed but when I sit down my brain switches back on and suddenly my mind starts racing and I have to pop back up and pace or draw or write.
A manic state is it's own beast like a hypomanic state.  They both have similar symptoms but are not at all the same thing.  Rapid cycling is different from a mixed state and all of the above are different than deep depression.  It is a lot to try to understand but when you are in a mixed state, if you are like me, there is not a whole lot that can bring you out of it unless you can get some sleep...which is not likely.  The main thing that you have to be able to do is try to figh the mania.  I can't remember what meds you are taking but in my case it doesn't matter anyway.  I am on the highest dose of Lamictal you can take and 600 mg of Seroquel and I still cycle more than most.
Let me know if there is anything else I can help with bud,

Larry