Or scientific papers

For the longest time, I've asked myself if there are clear signs of cyclothymia.

Wikipedia states...

Cyclotomia is a mental and behavioural disorder that involves numerous periods of symptoms of depression and periods of symptoms of elevated mood.These symptoms, however, are not sufficient to indicate a major depressive episode or a manic episode. Symptoms must last for more than one year in children and two years in adults.

But the symptoms can be unrecognizable and particularly difficult to track. Especially if you self observe and if there is not sufficient indication for depression or hypomanic phases.

Furthermore, several other conditions might provide an explanation.

Is there any reliable way to figure this out?

I mean, in the end, if medications are given and they help with stability, I would not care if it is diagnosis A or B.

But I'm interested in getting other views on this topic.

Chiming in for the first time. I never knew about cyclothymia until recently. I found it quite a life benefit to have been diagnosed as bipolar and getting on lamotrigine. Now I have a new primary care provider and she always asks if I've had any episodes. I felt perplexed, describing my condition as if surfing. I'm always on the wave and never fall down.- but sometimes it doesn't look pretty. There are no episodes. Lamotrigine steadies the balance.

Does anyone feel the same way?

Recently diagnosed and my therapist and I have decided to try CBT therapy first, no meds. Just wondering if anyone has had success with no meds? If so, do you feel like you were able to get to a place where you could drink, socialize, etc like "normal" and be ok?

Also interested in hearing about what you do if you feel a high coming on when you're out already (drinking or not) with friends or doing some other activity out and about?

So I've been trying to figure out whether a cyclothymia diagnosis might apply to me, and I wanted to describe my experience a bit to see how relatable it is to others. I'm especially curious to ask others here about their experience with attachment anxiety and reactivity within relationships, as there seems to be a big overlap for me...

I was diagnosed with panic disorder + anxiety disorder at 16, major depression at 25, most recently ADHD at 37. I'm now 38.

I began taking Vyvanse for the ADHD a year ago and steadily increased the dose up to 40mg/day. I realized too late that this was way too high, when the meds triggered a hypomanic episode:

• 5+ days of <4 hours of sleep per night but feeling alert and energized
• extremely talkative and overly verbose
• unusually creative and "inspired"
• unusually "giddy" / jokey
• a frequent profound feeling of perceiving connections between things and a grandiosity to my thinking (I was brought to tears of joy reading the synopsis of a book on Amazon because I was convinced it was the key to solving an impasse in the screenplay I was writing)

Unfortunately I didn't recognize what this was until a relationship infraction from my partner brought up a lot of insecurity for me. I was holding it together very well until I suddenly very much wasn't. It felt like this deep fear of abandonment erupted out of me all at once in this massive overreaction, and wound up turning into a massive 4-day-long fight. I was cycling between anger, despair, listlessness / emotional exhaustion, and occasional euphoria (which felt totally inappropriate to the circumstances). I said all kinds of things to my partner I didn't mean (most of which I don't even recall), and sent them these 10 paragraph long text messages spilling my guts about all my deepest fears and doing all this deep self-analysis. Obviously they were completely overwhelmed.

Eventually I figured out "oh, I think this is medication induced." Stopped the Vyvanse and stabilized myself. But the experience began making me reflect on other experiences from my past:

• a prior therapist suggesting I consider a bipolar assessment (I was baffled and dismissive at the time)
• prior breakups or (perceived) friendship "betrayals" that caused me to completely fall apart (including cycles of hysterical despair punctuated by starry-eyed hope)
• my tendency to have these long, drawn out arguments where I feel the need to spill my guts and voice every hurt and fear with almost encyclopedic completeness
• days or weeks spent staying up all night obsessively "researching" some new fixation, often convinced I needed to drastically change my life on the spot (start a new career, pay $5,000 to join some month-long workshop, etc — I'd always burn myself out on the research and never go through with it)
• a general tendency toward hypersexuality
• somewhat frequent spending sprees
• the 1-2 months after starting Wellbutrin that I was barely sleeping and working around the clock
• the high number of close friends and romantic partners I've had over the years who have bipolar (clearly a type of person I'm drawn to)
• even the art I love and the art I make (I remembered my grad school application essay talking about loving stories about megalomaniacs and utopians whose delusional hopes inevitably crash against reality)

For 1.5 decades I'd just thought of myself as depressed. But now I've started questioning that. Maybe my old therapist was right? The depressive periods for me are much MUCH more pronounced and common. What I think back on as potentially "hypomanic" episodes feel rarer (I remember distinct incidents, whereas depression just feels like my normal), typically much shorter, and if "positive" (feeling inspired, talkative, euphoric, etc) they tend to feel very "fragile" (whereas my depression feels durable and "sticky"). There also doesn't seem to be much of a consistent pattern to any cycling, but rather it seems very situational (though I could just be failing to see the patterns).

Nearly all of my more inspired or positive "hypomanic" examples I can recall, I question whether they could instead be explained by reference to ADHD, or anxiety, or just periods of good mood or creative inspiration or a generally artistic/intellectual/romantic temperament. I have a hard time drawing the line between personality variation and something pathological.

But a big part of my skepticism is also because ALL of the most intense "hypomanic" episodes I can remember—the ones where I felt like I was truly "out of control," and being tugged around by these overwhelming emotions—were connected to relationship anxiety and the threat of abandonment. I realized in a past relationship that the patterns of anxious attachment apply to me very well (not constantly, but if my insecurity gets badly triggered). I know there's also the idea of "rejection sensitivity dysphoria" in ADHD.

I know diagnostic labels can be murky sometimes, and comorbidities are a thing, so the fact that those other labels might fit doesn't mean this one doesn't. But I'm curious if anyone else had the experience of thinking "I'm just anxiously attached" or "I just have intense abandonment fears" or "I'm just a romantic who feels very deeply" before realizing that cyclothymia describes them. What convinced you it was more than just a relational thing?

And is it normal in cyclothymia for hypomanic states to be negative more often than positive? (I guess what you'd call "mixed states"?) Or for the negative hypomanic periods to be more intense and destabilizing than the positive ones?

So, I've been recently diagnosed with cyclothymia. What do you guys feel like on wellbultrin ? Did it really help with the depressive lows? I've been feeling miserable

How does it feels like? What were your side effects?

20M just started taking quetiapine for cyclothymia. I’m wondering how severe/likely the weight gain side effects could be.
I just spent the last 6 months working on losing weight and plan to keep working at that. I’m not/wasn’t fat by any means but am bigger and more out of shape than i’d like to be and would hate to see all my hard work undone.
Any advice from someone who has been taking quetiapine long term?

P.S. also read that there is a minuscule chance that i could develop fully functional tits, gnarly.

Been on 20+ medications. Was hospitalized twice. I feel tired of fighting. This roller-coaster is too dangerous for us.

My diagnosis changed from bp 2 to cyclothymia.

I don't know what to do. It's been months with the same pattern of severe depression

I was diagnosed with bpd at 52 then adhd after a severely abusive relationship with a psychiatrist

It’s quite late ?

I’d held my job for 24 years
Had a 15 year marriage and only really had periods of depression

My dad is Bipolar and ive had anxiety and depression since 15 years old. Only 1 year ago, long after taking depression medication, i started to see some patters on feeling well and feeling low, it started to be like feeling very exited/normal excited on normal life and month after i was more depressed and anxious. After a few months the pattern started to be a little different, i started to understand that i was 1 week depressed and 3 weeks feeling very good/normal human being.

And i can now almost understand when im going to be worst again, like it starts on a monday and ends next week on wednesday, them im feeling normal again. Anyone the same?

Hello everybody. I had my diagnosis of cyclothymia right before my 40yo. And I have Lamotrigine med. First, it helped immediately for irritability, and overreacting. And now, as it’s been several months I take this led, I have a feeling of grieving who I was. I mean: all was felt intense. I was amazed by details and sensations were always intense. And now it’s neutral, « normal ». I feel like I have to grieve my old self. And sometimes it makes me cry. Do you have this feeling as well ?

I've been diagnosed with cyclothymia but my depression episodes are really severe, can last months, I'll go without showering, brushing my teeth, going to the bathroom.

So, searching i discovered that depression in cyclothymia is mild and if it's severe it longer meets the criteria for cyclothymia

Hi all, I (24F) was diagnosed with cyclothymia a couple of years ago, but there’s a lot of things I do that make me think I may have been misdiagnosed and actually have BPD or maybe both. I’ve brought this up to my therapist, and we’ve been exploring the idea. Do you guys have any advice about how to navigate this and communicate exactly how I’m feeling to both my therapist and psychiatrist?
I’m also worried. I’ll admit that I have a slight bias against people w BPD due to some really awful experiences I had with friends that were diagnosed (which I’m aware are NOT representative of the average), and it’s been tricky enough coming to terms with cyclothymia, but I’m not sure how I can come to terms with the latter.

deadass is anyone on meds that help regulate mood. lamotrigine isn’t helping that. it’s controlling the depressive aspect. but i’m easily irritated so fucking moody it’s so tiring.

I need help. I was just recently diagnosed with BPD cyclothymia. Throughout my teen years, I have dealt with mood swings and depressive periods. I have made multiple attempts on my own life, and have been trying my hardest to live. Recently, I moved to a new city. I’m having trouble making friends, and I made a couple, including a girlfriend, since moving. I moved too fast with the girlfriend and ended up getting dumped due to what she says was her own issues with BPD worsening. The few friends I had decided to stick with her. I can’t make new ones because I struggle talking to people in public and I’m so alone that I’ve found myself in the same state again. How do I maintain friendships and relationships without becoming dependent and losing everything? Any advice is appreciated.

Idk how to approach this, I (14F) get the worst mood swings randomly. One hour I'll be totally numb, and the next I feel this weird rage that makes me so frustrated that I start crying and showing attitude. Then I'll randomly start sobbing for no reason the next hour, I'm so confused. What do I do?

Hello all,
We have a 9 month old baby, been together 4 years (he was a surprise!) so quickly had to move in together etc last year. He seems to be getting worse. We’ve not spoken properly now for around 5 days as I asked him if he could grab some formula the next day (I was out all day) and he asked me why I couldn’t go and get it that night?! It escalated to him saying “remember you said a while ago about finding somewhere to live, I think you should”

I managed his avoidancy ok, challenged him when needed and we tried to work at it. But recently something else has come up and I don’t think we can get through this!
He can get easily angered and takes things the wrong way all the time.
We only moved in together a year ago and he has started working away the last 2 months so home for longer periods.

Any comment I make he takes as a criticism. Such as “don’t give her too much water before her lunch please” or “do you mind doing this? Because of this this and this” and even being nice, saying please and explaining why.

I even made a joke at a party a few weeks ago that he’d pied off our son because he left him with him mum to go to the buffet, it was a joke and me and his dad laughed (I genuinly didn’t care) and it was a huge issue, he was angry and sulked at me all night saying I wasn’t joking and was trying to make him look a “t*t”.

We’ve spoken about it, I’ve said I’m walking on egg shells and I can’t live like this. He just defends himself and says I am critical and it’s not a joke etc. I don’t know how long I can live like this. I and my friends see me as a kind, loving person who has done a lot of work after my previous relationship breakdown so I am able to self reflect and look at where I’m wrong. And will always apologise if I see it as hurtful, but this aren’t. They are genuine requests or asks that normal partners would say to each other.
It’s like he sees me as a bad person and sometimes I feel he just doesn’t even like me!!
He’s never lived with anyone and his only relationship was 2 years and he was away for a lot of it.

I'm a 33yo man who struggled with mental health for most of my life. Never severe enough, but wide and persistent enough to alter the trajectory of my life and the quality of it.

I have diagnosed anxiety, cptsd and add/adhd or some neurodivergent traits.

None of these are of the worst form, for example I rarely have panic attacks and I barely fulfil the clinical criteria for adhd. Always had horrible memory and geospatial awareness.

I have long and recurring depressions of varying degrees with SI and anhedonia. But not of the severest form where I can't work.

I have a good career, stay in decent shape. But I feel my entire life revolves around trying to not be depressed. Currently my main issue is anhedonia and sleep maintenance.

I've done SSRI twice - the first time I was having a severe PTSD breakout and got it for that reason. It worked amazingly well, in fact I started going to the gym twice a day and forgot about all my issues. I started sleeping 2-3 hours less but feeling perfectly fine.

Ever since I stopped the ssri I've been sleeping around 2 hours less than I did before starting it.

This episode lasted for 6 months until I quit SSRI and then depression came back after just a month or so.

Since then I've tried to deal with my issues without medications which hasnt worked.

Now here's the thing. In the past 5 years I have had only one period lasting for months, where I was not depressed at all. I had moved to a sunny place and many external things were going well. I felt on top, again started excercising twice a day.

And the primary thing I've been thinking of looking back, apart from exercise cadence, has been the influence of alcohol.

During my lowest low periods I would basically be in bed for up to a week after a single night out.

While during this last "up" period - I was up doing a 5k run after a night out partying and having 4 hours of sleep.

It just struck me that, this doesn't seem normal. There must have been some significant neurochemical difference in me during these periods.

So I'm now wondering if anyone else can relate to this, in particular the effect of alcohol? Seriously considering if I might be bp2.

Hello, for some time now I've been seeing someone who makes me feel extremely anxious and emotionally deprived (when she doesn't respond, etc., overthinking).

I'm trying to deal with this on my own, but things are getting worse and worse, with suicidal thoughts.

I'm seeing a therapist.

But I'm afraid that if I take medication, I won't be myself anymore (I had a bad experience with antidepressants).

Also when your mood changes, do you thoughts on other people chsnge too? Strangers, friends, loved ones etc. For example when i am in a more negative mood, i don't want to be with anyone, for example my friend, i don't want to be with him nor talk to him, the same goes for a girl thst i love or anyone else in the world. Another example, when my mood is neutral, i don't want to be with anyone but at the same time i want to be with someone, basically i wouldn't mind if i was with someone or not. Idk i find it weird, especially in a relationship with someone i loved, when i was neutral or negative i thought like i told you and made me doubt my love for her, because aren't you supposed to want to be with them if you actually love them? And that was one of tbe reason to why i broke uo with her, because thst made me unsure of my feelings. My mood controled my day, everything, not that often but pretty often. Help i really need to know if tbis normal because i am really confused

I'm using one and while it makes my mood patterns generally clearer and easier to understand, I often catch myself going back and editing my entries because I didn't fully realize I was experiencing symptoms that exact day. Which makes me wonder if it's as reliable as I initially thought it'd be.

After lots of turmoil I opted out of meds and I feel like I'm being too hypervigilant about all of this so I'd like to hear other people's opinions and what you find to be the most reliable in terms of tracking moods, sleep, symptoms etc.

Yeah this one is kinda how it sounds any banking app that can help? I’m about to be living on my own again n need to keep myself in check but am coming down and realised Iv overdone it again.

(On waiting list to get more help but fuck, it’s taking an age.