Started to feel depressed yesterday, as well as when I awoke this morning. Apparently if you are looking out for it, it is possible to feel the onset of depression.
Before even the first real signs of depression start up, you can feel a pending heaviness. It feels a bit like the earliest signs of a flu - the point when you feel just off enough so that although you haven't come down with the flu yet, you know you will within the next day or so.
As Cap'n Jack Sparrow would say - "Interesting."
Upped my medication to 450mg Wellbutrin this morning. Am back into mild mania.
Will see what happens next.
ASHMC2
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I am also a rapid cycler – actually diagnosed ultra rapid, but I still can usually shift my moods towards the manic side of the spectrum by searching and finding a new interest. When I’m enthralled with something there is now time for depression. Works for me anyways. Sadly sometimes I can’t think of anything else for awhile though.
Later, Ash out…
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Polly
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Well, *I’d* believe you, but I don’t know if someone who isn’t manic-depressive would believe you!
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jinnah
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I so am a rapid cycler – and the cycles never stop. So I never need a trigger, I just have to wait about a week for my moods to change.
My experience with drugs is that they mask the cycles instead of stopping them, and they lessen the mood swings only to some degree.
The onset of depression in the past has been very rapid – usually by the time I realise the signs, I am too depressed to do anything about it.
This is one of the first times that I am actively looking for the start of my depressions. Apparently I need to catch it in the earliest stages, where they are almost more of an idea than a fact that I can point to.
This time around, I figured my depression might be starting because I had a full 8 hours of sleep without waking up in the night.
How much of a sign is that? Would anyone believe me if I told them that was how I knew I was getting depressed?
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Bipolar Wellness Writer
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I feel depressions before they start as well. Usually, I’ve got three days to make them go away naturally. That’s when I start doing a lot of exercise outdoors or begin a gardening or home improvement project. If I can’t stave it off, I have to start taking medication. But it sounds like you’re cycling, which is always difficult to handle.
I’m seriously considering learning self-hypnosis or trying biofeedback to see if there’s not a way to control the cycling–which has lessened considerably for me–but is still there on occasion.
Also, I try to clarify what “triggers” caused the depression to see if I can eliminate them and stop it that way.
Feel better!
Susan