What is dysphoric mania, Julie? I hear this question a lot. We know SO much about euphoric mania, and yet it’s dysphoric mania that causes the most damage. Have you or a loved one experienced dysphoric (mixed) mania? Read more and find out!
The main difference between Bipolar I and Bipolar II is the type of mania. Bipolar I has full blown mania- Bipolar II has hypomania. Bipolar II never has full blown mania- if it happens, the diagnosis is changed to Bipolar I. People with Bipolar I can definitely get hypomanic as well as fully manic!
Euphoric and dysphoric mania…..
There are two types of mania seen in both Bipolar I and Bipolar II : euphoric mania and dysphoric mania . Euphoric is just like it sounds. Dysphoric is harder to understand as we are not used to the word! Dysphoric mania means agitated mania. It’s a very uncomfortable feeling!
There is a lot of mental and physical agitation with dysphoric mania , but a person in this mood swing can be very aggressive and even violent. There are always sleep problems – the person looks haggard and worn out. They may sweat a lot and can look pretty wild in the face. I went through this with my former partner Ivan. He was in a dysphoric mania/psychotic episode for many months. He doesn’t get euphoric mania very often.
I’ve always felt this picture depicts what it’s like to be in a dysphoric and psychotic manic episode:
Whew. This illness is very complicated. If you have bipolar disorder, what kind of mania do you experience the most? If you care about someone with the illness, how would you describe their mania?
I have bipolar II hypomania. I mainly dealt with euphoric mania from age 17 until I was in my 40s. Then the dysphoric mania hit me hard! I force myself to get help when the euphoric mania is here. It’s hard to ask for help during dysphoric mania as you feel like everyone else is the problem.
It takes a lot of practice and self awareness to acknowledge and get help for bipolar mania! But we can change our lives for the better by understanding the signs of dysphoric mania and using a plan to stop the mood swing before it goes too far.
Julie
PS: My absolute worst dysphoric manic episode happened when I tried medical marijuana after dislocating my pelvis in a biking accident. I write a lot about this experience and hope that we can all be aware of external substances that can lead to dysphoric mania and psychosis in people with bipolar disorder.
I usually have dysphoric mania. I get very irritable and grouchy and am just a difficult person to be around, especially for my family.
I have had euphoric mania occasionally. When it happens I just have a lot of energy and I just want to clean the house from top to bottom, make lots of lists of things to do…and then burn out in a few days or a week!
I’m pretty much mixed state. I cycle back and forth between depression and mania.
Sleep and weight management are challenges. I looked like the walking dead.
Agitation, irritability, anxiety and paranoia were present. The right medication and meeting with an experienced psychologist that understood BP were mind saving essentials.
I only had euphoric mania once. I felt like i could conquer the world. i felt like a super hero. that if i wanted to sly i could, it was a wild ride. that was 6 years ago. ever since then i have been in a slight depressed state, even taking cymbalta, lithium, abilify and lamictal. you would think i would be happy as a pig in shit, right? NOPE.
I agree with you, julie. Hypomania is the best…until it ends. I even miss it as I was awake for 19 hours and got so much done. The toll it took on my family and my career was devastating. I would rather stay in balance, on meds, then do that to the people I love,
PS thanks for the great website!!
When I was diagnosed with BP II a few years ago, I was quite shocked. 1. I never had any manic episodes, and 2. having worked as a clinician in the mental health field, I had never heard of this diagnosis. It wasn’t until a new doc increased my lexapro up to 10 mg. (which I had only been on for a couple months) that I thought I was losing my mind and was scared enough to call someone. This was what led him to the BP II dx and not just depression (which I believe I successfully masked to the outside world for a very long time.) It took me a while to look at those behaviors that tend to be more hypomanic – getting real good ideas – like starting my PhD, having energy, being more social, and feeling positive.
I began taking Lamictal and felt better immediately – even while detoxing from the lexapro. It’s been a few years now and I am at 200mg. When I see my doc, he tells me that an increase will not be effective, but that isn’t what I find on sites such as this one. I began searching again today because I don’t want to resign myself to the belief that I will always feel this way, which makes me feel more depressed. When I read about the generic vs lamictal, something clicked in – for the last 2 months I have noticed a steady decline in my mental state – which made me look at my med bottle. Interestingly, I have been on the generic lamotrigine for about 1 1/2 months. I plan on rectifying this asap.
I don’t want to augment the lamictal with another med., and I want to ask you Julie about your experience in increasing your dose to 500mg.
Thank you, I know this comment has a few different topics 🙂
Hello my name is Gailynne. I saw your question to Julie about the medication lamictal. When I began taking this medication I started with 200 mg per day and gradually the dosage was increased until I began felling what I call normal for me. I am taking 6-7mgs per day. I have also requested the brand or manufacture be MYLAN this is the only one that works for me. The pharmacy always tries to give me another brand so I have to check every time I order the medication that they fill it correctly. My Doctor also puts that on the prescription as well. My advice would be to push your Doc a bit more about increase the dose to see if it helps, you can always change it back. I obviously am not a Doctor and have NO idea what other health issues you may have but this is the approach I took with mine. Good luck 🙂
Wow. Harriet sounds like me. I have BPII and have had hypomania all summer. It is so much better than been so depressed that I couldn’t function for over 6 months….now, I want to finish my PhD…I already di 50 graduate credits, so I want to finish before I have another depressive episode and can’t even do basic things!!!!!
My psychiatrist is out of the office today, but I will ask about these weird sensations in my head. It isn’t really a dizzy spell, put a weird sensation that goes through my head and usually is a signal that I am not doing well (not thinking clearly, can’t concentrate, etc..)
I only take Abilify, 2.5 q day, Ambien at night. I totally lost my bottle of Effexor a few days ago, so I called the pharmacy and left a message at the psychiatrist’s office…..
The weird feeling in your head is the Effexor withdrawal. That is a horrible medication, and coming off of it is hell. Pfizer calls it “Discontinuation Syndrome”, and they list all of the effects from withdrawal on their website.
Thank you for stating in your comment that ur no two, I was just diagnosed S bipolar two mix…., why not put a new swing on things…lol
I HAVE BI-POLAR 1…ALONG WITH PERSONALITY DISORDERS AND ANGER DPOBLEMS AS WELL AS PANIC ATTACS AND ANXIETY ATTACS.. AND DEPPRESION AND HYPERMANTIC ITS UP ONE MINUTE DOWN THE NEXT !! MY COUNCELOR SAYS IM OFF THE CHARTS BOTH WAYS…SEVERLY MANIC I HAVE DIFFERANT MOODS FROM ONE EXTREME TO THE OTHER MULTIPLE TIMES A DAY SOMETIMES …IVE BEEN TO ANGER MANAGEMENT 2 TIMES OVER THE YEARS COUNCILING ALL SORTS OF THINGS BUT I WAS JUST DIAGNOSED IN 2012 ?? MY MOM IS SKIZAFRENTIC AND BI-POLAR..I WAS TOLD I SHOULD HAVE BEEN DIAGNOSED WAY WAY SOONER.. IAM 45 I DONT UNDERSTAND WHY NOW? I HAVE BEEN HOSOITALIZED AS WELL,,, ANY SUGGESTIOS
I have Bipolar 1 for over 25 years. I am pretty well controlled with medicines but I still have significant and downs. My depression is easy to spot but sometimes I can’t distinguish between hypo manic and normal mood. I haven’t been full blown manic since I was Hospitalized as a kid. I have the health cards for years. I look at them mostly when I am depressed which is happening more lately. I have never filled them out because it is hard for me to distinguish all the moods and what I do to help. I am able to work, although sometimes it is hard. Any suggestions on how I can get this filled out?
Thank you, Julie, for sharing with us. I thought I should tell a little about myself since the topic was brought up. Maybe someone can relate and not feel like they are alone. Also, I hope they decide to get help if they can relate to the symptoms like mine.
I was diagnosed with Bipolar II around the beginning of last year (2015). It really all started because of an anti-depressant I was prescribed for fibromyalgia called Cymbalta. I needed to take it to control my nerve issues. While I had always had episodes of depression off and on most of my adult life, and I had already experienced an episode of what I’d call mania, I became almost a different person on the Cymbalta. It made my head feel clearer, but I had a few side effects, such as headaches with large doses. The worst side-effect was that I felt completely uninhibited. My behavior changed to something that was erratic, and I ended up hurting a lot of people because of things I did that were not like me. Granted, I know that all of my behavior couldn’t be attributed to just the medication, but even my husband and son said they noticed the change in me.
I started to wean myself off the Cymbalta on my own. Looking back, that was probably a mistake, but I didn’t want to be the person I was on the medication. I admit it felt good to feel uninhibited since normally any mental conditions I suffered from were depressive in nature, but I didn’t want to hurt my family anymore, so I decided to quit. It was once the medication was completely out of my system that I started experiencing severe depression and extremely bad mood swings. I got very cranky a lot, and I secluded myself as much as possible from people because I couldn’t stand to be around them. I knew there was a real problem when I was laying in bed with my husband one night, and his breathing started irritating me. It was bad to say the least.
Finally, I decided I needed to get help. I was at the point where I didn’t understand why I was even put on this earth. I couldn’t see a purpose in my life, and I was scared because there were times I didn’t care if I lived anymore. I’d lay in bed, gaining weight, and also feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders. So, because of this, I went to see a psychiatrist. After hearing my symptoms, she diagnosed me with Bipolar II, and she put me on a low dose of a mood stabilizer called Lamictal to see if it helped with my moods. After being on it and increasing the dose for a few months, I finally started feeling normal again. The depression went away (Praise God), and I started creating goals for my life again.
I want to stress the importance of making sure a psychiatrist knows your full medical history before they start to prescribe medications for any illness. After going to the psychiatrist who diagnosed my mental illness, I found out that I shouldn’t have been put on Cymbalta in the first place. Apparently, it can make those with bipolar illness slip into manic episodes. I am much more aware of what will affect my moods now, and I am very hesitant to take any type of medication that may interact with the Lamictal I’m on or send me into either a manic or depressive episode. I urge anyone seeing a mental health specialist to ask about their experience in diagnosing mental health problems and explaining the different options to treat them. It makes a big difference.
I’m always surprised by the assumption people have the bipolar = euphoria, having never had any instances of euphoria (unlike my mother, who was a fairly classic euphoric bipolar with increasing elements of psychosis approaching her early death). I’ve always fairly-rapidly cycled between deep melancholy and agitated dysphoria (I’m actually in the later at the moment; I feel like my body wants to turn itself inside out and wear it’s nervous system as a nice fishnet outfit), but it was only in the past few years