Please describe the manic and depressive phases of bipolar.

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For those of you with bipolar; how would you describe the differences between the manic and depressive phases of bipolar?

I have cyclothymia in addition to Asperger's which is a very mild form of bipolar but apparently can eventually develop into full blown bipolar in later life. I'm wondering how my highs/lows compare to those of full blown bipolar?

I'd describe my cyclothymic high as being full of energy and enthusiasm. I get lots of work done and am very creative. I don't need to sleep as much as normal. I sometimes forget to eat.

The lows tend to be characterised by lethargy and lack of energy. Not necessarily a feeling of being depressed, though sometimes I am. I tend to sleep more and eat more. I don't get much work done and little enthusiasm to do anything.

There is usually no trigger (or non that I'm aware of) for switching between the high and low moods. Though sometimes something small can trigger a swing from high to low.

Are bipolar "depressive" phases really depressed or more like my cyclothymic withdrawn / lethargic states?

What triggers a switch between manic and depressive states?

from my training at pitt med school:

mania - like your highs, only to the extreme: lots of energy, no sleep for days, fast talking, can't keep up with ideas, feel invincible, other delusions of grandeur, spending money you don't have, taking on multiple sexual partners. can be very happy or can have angry energy. with or without psychosis

depression - no energy, no enjoyment of things you usually like, feelings of guilt and worthlessness, suicidal thoughts, no sleep or too much sleep, changes in appetite, constant low mood for at least two weeks. with or without psychosis

is this helpful?

With full-blown mania, everyone who interacts with you in real life would know something's very wrong. With full-blown depression, you likely would not have the motivation to make this post.

I'm Bipolar II...

Mania: [Edit: technically I have 'hypomania' and not full-blown mania]
- super creative and inspired
- able to think much faster and work more productively
- much better language ability than usual
- higher opinion of myself than usual
- hyperfocused on my special interest, pretty much 24/7
- bouncy, needing to get up and pace all the time
- more 'on edge' and sensitive to noises
- can barely sleep, sometimes forget to eat
- time passes quickly; the whole day flies by without me realizing it
- can last anywhere from a week to several months

Depression:
- zero interest in being creative
- very poor language ability
- low opinion of myself
- dull, dazed, stupid feeling
- time seems to pass very slowly
- able to sleep a bit better
- used to feel intensely suicidal, but not anymore
- can last a few weeks to several years

What influences my cycles:
- Seasonal changes (manic in summer, depressed in winter)
- Moon phases (manic at full moon, depressed at new moon)
- Weather (happy on sunny days, sad on rainy/foggy days)
- Chemicals (sugar & caffeine make me hyper for a few hours, but then I crash)
- Situations (when good things happen I get manic, bad things make me crash into depression)

I've found that my mood at any given time is a factor of all of those things, and I have cycles within cycles – short-term ups and downs, within long-term periods of depression or mania.

bipolar II's get hypomania, not mania.

I'm schizoaffective bipolar type according to most doctors, and to other docs I am Bipolar 1 with psychotic features. So, here's my symptoms according to mania and depression.
Mania: Much more rare for me than depression.
1. Hyper talkativeness. Jumping from subject to subject whether unrelated or not, "flight of ideas, loosening of associations."
2. Hyper energy. Wanting to do a billion things at once.
3. Between extreme distratibility, or super focused on special interest.
4. Slightly overspending (unusual symptom for me as I have very little money to begin with and i live with my parents so there's some control there.) I know for most cases of mania there is huge overspending of thousands of dollars sometimes on completely random things.
5. Grandiose delusions and goals. Mostly thinking I will single-handedly change the world. I mean with my art I thought i was going to truly make hundreds of millions of dollars a YEAR and started thinking on how to spend it. Also, there are times I believe I can fly and am impervious to harm. There are times where I think I am going to start a new religion that will bring together all other religions.
6. No, I don't go have sex with random people as some do with mania.
7. Extreme creativity with my art (especially when I am having art related delusions), so I draw from the time I get up to the time I go to sleep (If I can sleep that is).
8. Racing thoughts.
9. Yes, there are times everyone notices that I am manic.
10. Can last around a week to 6 months (longest one ever was that 6 months).

Depression (Much more common for me, as this world is an extremely dark world with demons everywhere)
1. Complete worthlessness. I feel this 99% of the time.
2. Hopelessness (I feel this NOW), there is no hope in my life no light at the end of the tunnel.
3. Brain ain't work as fast, can't figure out simple things (might be related to my low intelligence, however), can't process information as easily visually or auditory doesn't matter.
4. I don't care about doing anything with my art, have no creativity. Just darkness everywhere.
5. Depersonalization, derealization but this might be more related to my anxiety. I know generally dissociative symptoms can be related to anxiety or panic disorder.
6. Either overeating or loss of appetite.
7. Near complete anhedonia, only pleasurable activity that remains is Internet. Reason? Internet addiction disorder and must know everything even while my world crashes before me.
8. Mild avolition, with also reduction of affect (my mom says flat affect but I doubt it).
9. Severe realism (other people might call pessimism).
10. Self harm (cutting primarily, but when severe head banging {intentional to cause so called 'brain' damage or unconsciousness}) I want the "brain" damage because I don't want to understand the Hell that is going to happen to my family and I, it brings me to tears even thinking about it. And I don't even know if I have a brain. I know you might think this has to do with Borderline Personality Disorder, but self harm can happen in other conditions besides BPD. Its just the most common in BPD.
11. I stay in bed for about 20 hours a day on average if no appointments.
12. Of course its implied from the title, but sadness. I know there are different forms of depression, and you can be irritable instead of just sad but I get the sad type.
13. Sometimes but not always, suicidal ideation. While I did overdose several times, it wasn't a suicide attempt like the doctors think no matter how many times I try to convince them otherwise. It was to get the voices out of my head and also to calm myself down.
14. So called "delusional" guilt. It ain't delusional. But that's what the world calls it. Delusional means a false belief even held with contradictory evidence. With mine, no one can prove otherwise. My psychic powers are REAL proven many times over. I want GOD to take away these hellish powers. I would do ANYTHING to get rid of them. For example on another board I go on I predicted mass layoffs at where my dad works. I told my dad this last year. Yesterday it was announced. I bring Hell to the world. I am guilty for most bad things that happen on this horrible planet that we live on called "Earth." I also predicted not long ago, this horrible massacre in Africa that was imminent. I described the scene to people. Then a week or two later it was all over the news with thousands dead. I cause this to happen. The guilt is just too powerful. It comes to me in visions or dreams. With depression I know outsiders would just blow it off as a "mood congruent delusion of guilt associated with major depressive episode with psychotic features." But I've had this for many, many years. Even while not depressed. Its because its a curse, not a gift. Don't ever wish this upon your worst enemy. Also knowing everything is horrible (I know this sounds more manic than depressed) but its a curse.

Stress is the main trigger for me, or sometimes there are no triggers at all. My schizoaffective symptoms are not always dependent on mania or depression since there has to be that 2 week period without mood episodes but have psychotic symptoms.

Psychotic symptoms:
1. What docs would view as bizarre delusions but they ain't bizarre to me at all. I fully believe them. I know they sound strange, but at the same time I believe them to be real. Right now they are in the background of my mind due to my lovely anti psychotics. Won't go into the belief system here.
2. Hallucinations primarily of the auditory and visual type. Sometimes when severe , command hallucinations.
3. Incoherence. AKA Word salad.

I think everyone here has already said it but I wanted to add a few things. Ashariel said some things I really relate to, especially the psycho motor retardation (actual term) that comes with the depressive episodes.

I'm rapid cycling (though I've been going 8 days hypomanic/ a few manic episodes and there's no sign of stopping) so I experience shorter but still very intense episodes. My depression will usually reach its climax with very serious suicidal thoughts. I always consider it but never act on it, and soon after I'll become hypomanic again. I usually go from a few hours to no more than four days hypomanic and then 24/72 hours depressed, and have very brief normal phases but usually I feel the episodes are mixed.

The way I can tell the difference between mania and hypomania is, well if you've ever take speed mania gives me that wired effect and it's like my usual hypomania is sped up. Or I feel like I'm on Ritalin when I've been off it for 6 months, because it threw me too often into mania. I get more delusional (magic thinking) during this time and feel very restless. A type of feeling uncomfortable in own skin and just never comfortable doing anything. I jump from one task to another and seem to be easily bored. I'm very talkative and extremely arrogant which seems out of character for me. I have a stream of creative ideas and can become influenced by what I read. Books on synchronicity can take my mind to many strange places. My delusions don't seem terribly abnormal (at least to me - someone once said I sounded schizophrenic) but they have a type of obsessive intensity about them. One of my longest episodes (thanks to Ritalin) had me thinking I was going to be the next best selling sci-fi author, that this story would change the way people saw things and that it would be turned into a whole movie trilogy. I wrote some really weird things for my sci-fi story while manic. I was dead set on it being a success and then when I became disillusioned I was torn apart. I must have started to go through depression by that time too.

I've got to admit the multiple sexual partners made me laugh. I've had only a few promiscuous affairs including the last one. I felt like I had used someone who still had feelings for me. From December to January 1st I had done some pretty reckless things because of mania, including taking Ritalin again. Just one night but I was out of control.

To me the higher and longer the mania then the worse the depression will be, and it's often lengthened which is why I'm a little worried about coming down from this mixed but mostly hypomanic episode. I can feel really awful during depression and not leave my bed for many hours. I'll be on top of the covers and just find it difficult to move, and the more I explore these thoughts the sooner I'll come out of it. I'm still capable of writing posts (I've written posts post-seizure after partial paralysis) but it will be a lot harder to word my sentences and I might just think 'meh, who can be bothered' and just leave it until I feel I have more energy.

Also, even though I can stay up and be full of manic energy, and get so much done that I'm not usually capable of (once I struggled to re-design my own band photography logo and one night of a full moon I just stayed up and did it), but I do eventually go to bed. I just get so scattered the next day and lose all motivation (in a non-depressed way - think ADHD) that I don't think it's worth it. I usually just have restless nights in bed.

My life is definitely more futile than both of you. I've never worked, am on disability and it took a worried brother and sister talking me through the process of travelling overseas to get me to go. I don't even know how to swim. But I suppose if we're all on an autism forum we have equal struggles in the social and dating scene. Yet again I've given up on dating.
I pretty much think I'll be dependent on my family for the rest of my life.

I have mixed episodes too where I still think that I should kill myself. It was a strange experience to have positive mania yet still think those things. Really rapid cycling mixed episodes are hell. Right now mine aren't cycling so fast but are felt as one with the positive symptoms dominating. I often hallucinate about spiders or something like that. I've been hearing noises today. I don't really want to explain them because I get paranoid. The hallucinations I had trouble convincing myself weren't real were tactile. I thought my teeth had disappeared. Just on the right side but all I felt was gum. I had a type of alien medial emergency room hallucination that was extremely vivid too. But that was caused more by a temporal lobe seizure. I've been seeing patterns lately too like one would from taking LSD.

Thank you everyone for your posts detailing your experiences. I share some of the manic / depressive phases that you describe in Bipolar 2 but thankfully not all of them, nor to the same severity. Apparently cyclothymia can develop into full blown bipolar over time but I'm keeping my fingers crossed it doesn't happen.

I love my manic phases. I'm really creative and totally absorbed in what I'm doing. I'm truly happy then.

I don't take any ongoing medication at the moment for the condition but if I sense my moods becoming excessively manic or depressive I take mood stabilisers that help me to return a medium and less erratic mood. I can relate to the sense of futility in life that many of you describe especially when I hit severely depressed phases with suicide ideation. I feel I'm just passing time until one day I reach the point I'm financially unable to continue... i.e. the tax man will one day demand money I don't have and I'll be facing life on the street or suicide... the latter seems inevitable, but hopefully not for a few more years yet.

That whole writing yesterday was an example of a depressive phase, I'm not always suicidal or thinking of suicide, I just do it often. It's probably not normal. When I am depressed there is kind of like a bias toward all the bad and stuff. I tend to dwell on it.

I have had manias that were pure euphoria too, lasting several weeks, where I see the magic in everything. Oddly enough that was when I was hospitalized (the only time). I went into a full-blown psychosis, I called the cops on myself because I thought I envisioned the end of the universe or something like that. Ended up in the hospital for about 6 weeks.

*double post deleted

People have written a lot already but I'll add in brief some of the things I experience during different mood states.

Mania/Hypomania:

* My speech speeds up and I find myself talking very fast. Often I feel my face flush and heat up or like I can't stop grinning, or burst out laughing all the time. Feelings of euphoria that vary in intensity. During one of the strongest euphoria's I've felt I actually became really scared that I would have a heart attack because it felt like my heart was racing so fast and the euphoria was so intense. I tend to get lots of ideas but don't tend to act on most of it in a productive way because I try to do too many things at once. I also don't tend to have much if any control over the ideas or urges to do things that I have, so even when i do get things done/do things it's not always useful things. I tend to have strong bursts of energy and find myself capable of acts of physical ability that should be beyond my body's capacity (e.g. I once swam 120 laps of the pool and I only stopped because I felt bored, when I got out of the pool I felt just as energetic as when I got in, if not more so).

Mixed:

* Often a mixture of rage, desperation, volatility and despair. Extreme irritability. Often have thoughts about how if I don't manage to change the world in my lifetime then I may as well be dead. Feeling like my life has been worthless/meaningless/I have achieved nothing of worth (in comes the desperation). Or feeling that people close to me are somehow holding me back (paranoia, hate, etc) Often I end up either sobbing and hysterical or running long distances listening to heavy metal music to try and calm down.

Depression:

* Loss of energy and will to the point where i am unable to move or speak. Complete numbing of all emotion or feeling nothing but a kind of hollow hopelessness/sadness. Can reach the point where suicide seems like way too much effort. Sometimes it feels like my vision sort of changes and everything is more sort of grey. Often i experience a loss of time - like time moves in lags and jerks, but mostly jerks - eg. I look at the clock and it's 3pm, then what feels like 5mins later to me i look again and it's 4:30. I think I experience mixed episodes a lot more often than pure depression though. In some ways I feel more despair during a mixed episode because depression is more like nothingness whereas mixed is multiple intense emotions.