What are your experiences with mixed episodes? (Bipolar)

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For those of you who experience mixed states, can you explain to me what they feel like? I’m having a difficult time understanding the clinical descriptions - you are happy and sad at once! - but have found a few personal accounts that seem to make more sense.

Lately, I’ve been having episodes of what I thought was extreme depression, but now I wonder if they aren’t mixed episodes. Example: I feel like there is a whirlwind in my mind, constant howling thoughts saying, you’re worthless, you’re ugly, you’re incompetent, you have wasted every opportunity you have been given, no one likes you or will like you, you are a burden. It feels like a sandstorm, stripping everything away. I find myself out frantically weeding the garden, sobbing, thinking about how ugly the garden is and how much the neighbors hate me for it. I ended up with three piles of weeds about six feet tall last time I did this. At work I can’t focus on anything, it’s just one thought about how badly I am doing something or how far behind I am on something after another, and I jump from task to task and can’t seem to complete any of them, even the simplest ones. I can’t sleep, I just think of terrible things all night long. Is this a mixed state? There’s no happiness, so I thought no, but this doesn’t seem like simple depression, either.

I was diagnosed with depression as a teenager - the symptoms really started when I was 12 - but had many lengthy episodes of intense anger and irritation and also euphoria, but was told that this was all part of depression and didn’t meet the criteria of manic depression (what they were calling it at the time). I was put on Prozac and then Paxil but had an extreme rage issue on them, and was finally switched to amitryptaline, which worked pretty well.

When I read now, these cycles of elation and irritation that I experienced no longer seem to be part of the depression spectrum, and seem more like bipolar ii.

I am seeing a psychopharmacologist in October, but was hoping for input if anyone had any.

I guess the other thing I would add is that my grandmother, who has had a lifelong diagnosis of depression, was just rediagnosed as bipolar.

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constant howling thoughts saying, you’re worthless, you’re ugly, you’re incompetent, you have wasted every opportunity you have been given, no one likes you or will like you, you are a burden. It feels like a sandstorm, stripping everything away

It’s always there. Like a phantom, or specter.
You gonna experience ambiguity all along. I guess the key is to accept discomfort and try your best to face those thoughts and then to let them go.
If you really stop and ask yourself “why im feeling what i feel”…and after you give yourself the honest answer…you should be able to move on because you will know that those thoughts are not natural, they have a cause and a source, whether its hidden in the past or stuck in your present.
Like, for example, if im horrified by the feeling that everyone gonna leave me for whatever reason…im gonna ask myself is that really possible or that little girl inside was beaten too many times to even remember how it’s like to not feel like a victim… And i will know that there is no truth behind the thoughts, just days and days of continuous beatening the body into silent&obedient.

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Thank you, this is really helpful. I mean, really. Particularly it reminds me of how I dealt with these feelings a long time ago - I read the Tao Te Ching and internalized it, I reminded myself that I am a vessel for these thoughts, they pour in and pour out, but they’re not me, they’re like a wind blowing through, I can feel and see them blow through me, but when they’re gone, I’m still here.

I’ve gotten away from that in the past several years. I’m going to reread and see what I can take from it. I think you’re right, maybe it will help if I can understand where the wind is coming from.

Thank you again.

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I know what it’s like. Almost every word you write is ( too oftenly) in my mind. And im not ‘only depressive’ or ‘only manic’ …its always in between. And im also stimulation addict.
And, don’t think about diagnosis so much. Some of us will never be completely ‘here’ or ‘there’.

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I don’t know how I missed this, as I’ve been doing a lot of reading. But “agitated depression” is a perfect descriptor for what I experience.

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Agitated depression is a form of a Mixed State- this describes what I go through lately as well

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will you marry me?

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Do you have a gReen caRd?

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Ssshhh, but, I don’t think she’s a virgin.

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You take that back or im gonna… I will throw a special eastern whore spell on you.

( and im sooo outta here)

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I’m really sorry to hear it, because it’s awful. Is there anything you’ve found that helps you deal with it?

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she should be stoned to death then. whats wrong with you people is it really that hard to keep your virginity?

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Danddolo has particular requirements, we’ve learned recently. I also don’t believe he has a green card. Just looking out for both of you, but feel free to throw any spell you’d like this way. I bet it’d be fun.

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No, but why bother?

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the law and hashem demands it, brother.

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Not here it doesn’t. Keep looking, I’m sure you’ll find your virgin eventually. (for the record, sister, not brother. And also not a virgin.)

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the chances are like winning the lottery. and ive tried and failed.

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Thats because the west has a corrupted sense of morality - nothing new. sister? not a virgin? looks like we need more stones.

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How about instead of stones, we just don’t get married and call it even?