Hi, how’s it going? Hope you are doing well.
I overheard a story once that stuck with me. A young child was talking to his mother. He was trying to understand in his young mind what to feel now that his grandpa had died. His grandpa had been very sick and miserable for a long time. He had a belief system that said that his grandpa was in a better place now.
So in some ways he felt happy for his grandpa. But in a lot of other ways he felt sad, because now he would have to miss him. He was confused by the fact that he felt happy and sad at the same time. Up until that point he thought that he could only feel one or the other at a time. But not that day.
This is kind of what a mixed mood is like, only a little more extreme. With a mixed mood, it’s not just a couple of emotions that are being mixed at the same time. It’s everything about your mood.
With a mixed mood, you can be experiencing extreme highs and extreme lows at the same time. Have you ever felt manic and depressed all at once before? If you have, then you’ve experienced a mixed mood.
Maybe you’re the supporter, and you’ve been confused by the mix of symptoms you see in your loved one. They are sleeping most of the day, but when they do wake up they have manic energy. They are excited easily and talking a hundred miles an hour, but they are feeling negative overall and may even be suicidal. They can’t control how they spend their money or who they sleep with, but they don’t have the energy to get up to do simple chores.
This doesn’t even make sense. Well, guess what? It doesn’t make sense to them, either! This is the weirdest part of bipolar disorder. As if depression and mania weren’t confusing enough when they were separate!
But, for many people who have bipolar disorder, this is a part of life. Some even deal with mixed moods all the time. Those people are particularly hard to diagnose, because they don’t show the usual mood swings that are common to bipolar disorder. They don’t have to show mood swings, though – they have all the moods right there!
One of the hardest parts about dealing with mixed moods is figuring out which part to treat first. There’s only one right answer to this. Can you guess it? Both! If you just treat the depression first and ignore the mania, then it may start uncontrollable mood swings. The same thing can happen if you just treat the mania and ignore the depression.
Another hard part to dealing with mixed moods is even recognizing what they are to begin with. That’s why it’s important to keep a good mood chart that charts your symptoms, and not just your “overall mood.” You should be charting things like irritability, hours of sleep, emotions, self-control, and anxiety. This will help you recognize when your mood has shifted to a mixed mood.
When you do determine that you are in a mixed mood, you should tell your treatment team immediately, including your psychiatrist and your therapist. Your medications or therapy may need to be adjusted, and you may need to look into different coping techniques than the ones you have been using.
Mixed moods are difficult to deal with, mostly because they are so confusing. Hope this cleared it up a little bit for you.
Well, I have to go!
Your Friend,
Dave
Post responses below
Hi Dave:
Good subject today. I am living with Bipolar Disorder Type II, and I am finding that I have more “mixed” states than anything else. Usually, with B/P type II, this manifests itself as depression WITH irritability and/or anger outbursts. e.g. I can be almost too depressed to get out of bed, but then when I finally do get up, I will go to the store or for a coffee or something, a stranger will say something to trigger me, and I will end up going off on them, shouting or whatnot. This is indeed the WORST state to be in, because, as you say, you are both “down” and “up” at the same time, but for me, the “up” is not pleasant at all. I feel actually “wound up”, a loose cannon waiting to be set off. I’m never sure how I’ll behave in public when I’m in this state, so now I don’t go out at all when it occurs. Batten down the hatches! My psychiatrist prescribed Clonazepam, in addition to my mood stabilizer and (light dose) antidepressan…I take a Clonazepam only when I feel very anxious or worked up. It really does take the edge off, and I can actually feel the anger seeping out of me.
Of course, I’m not recommending this particular medication for anyone else…but I would recommend mentioning to your psych. doc. if you do experience these “mixed states”…your medication can be adjusted or have something added to it to help you through this.
i would love for you to speak to some of my “girl friends”!!!!
144 tilla drive this really hit home to me. i am now getting to undestand my feelings more. i have always felt this way since i was so very young. thank you for sharing this with me….
Sounds like a horrible experience. I’m noticing this in my son. His father also had mixed states, and rapid cycling, the kind that changes depending on the time of day. I feel so frustrated for them but they need to recognize their own symptoms somehow and treat them. My son is able to “feel” agitated or anxious and he does not like it as it affects his health terribly. He also has alot of trauma triggers to deal with, so he has alot on his plate. On the other hand, his father seems to love feeling angry and agitated and is addicted to it it seems, knowing that certain things will trigger him to explode, he will do those things more ! I feel that my son’s course with this illness will be much more positive because he has seen what the self destruction and comorbidities do to destroy the person with the problems and the family around them. He also has excellent docs and therapists that are real about the condition and not just playing head games and pretending there is nothing wrong. Since it is a lifelong condition, it is best to start off by engaging and taking the condition seriously, rather than denying it. You wouldn’t deny a person needing bypass so what is the sense denying serious mental and behavioral health issues.
i really really love your emails….they are so me.
(they are also helping me cope…..i’m trying!)
i wish that you could talk to my son so that he’d finally understand me.
i too get so depressed that i cant get out of bed. Once i do, everything is just too much work. it seems that the only time that i get up is to go to work and that is even beginning to be a chore now…i’m to the point of no make-up….believe me, up until the past 2 years, i wouldnt dream of leaving the house, let alone go to work without make-up. then there is my up side….i go waaaay up…trying to get so much done in one day because i’m never sure what the next day will be like….it’s all soooo exhausting.
i’m currently on Welbutrin (300mg/day)for manic depression, Clonazepam (3 little green pills daily) and Seroquil 25mg.
Hi Dave,
I am bipolar. Lately I have been going through mixed moods. I am 56 yrs old. I remember my folks saying when I was a child that “We don’t know what kind of mood you will be in, when you come out of your room every morning.We walk on eggshells until we find out.”
Now I have been studying BP since I was diagnosed with BP in 2000. Took 50 years to find out or at least give my disorder a name. Looking back I see yes I was BP then too. Fighting with 5th graders when I was in first grade. I don’t remember mixed moods from before. I did not even recognize that I was having mixed moods because I am usually depressed.
One day my sweet hubby, Claude, said to me that these mixed moods were confusing him more that anything else we have been through together. Together 28 yrs now, married 26.It made me stop and go hummmmmm. I started thinking about mixed moods when I remember what my folks used to say.
Two weeks ago I talked to my therapist, then next day I saw my pdoc (psych). We decided on upping my Clonazepam to 3 times a day. I am still having mixed moods. So far the increase hasn’t affected me. Except that I am sleepy. I have been on all different kinds of meds in my 50 of being BP. I know that it takes a while to adjust.
Thank you for sending this note to Claude. He said he really understands mixed moods better now. He sent it to me. Although I may have the same one from you, but his notes to me about what you say is important to me.
Understanding my own disorder better with your help.
Thanks again,
Cindy
My Dear good people, I am glad I stumbled onto your Website. Reading a few comments from you, I realize my problem could have been with me for a long long time. When I was in school I used to be under a lot of pressure, negative treatment from my older fellow students. The fact that my father never allowed my mother to come and visit me like other mothers used to do made me a very unhappy and lonely student. And for this, I resented my father very much. (I went to a Boarding School when I was 9 years old!) The situation became so bad I had to run away from school and stayed away for 1 and a half years, until the situation in the country became so unsafe and I was advised to go back to Boarding School)
I got married when I was 17 (that was 54 years ago) to a fantastic man. Though I was always having these mood swings, getting irritable, quarellsome over very small things, he loved me even more. He never once in all the 37 and a half years we were married, got angry with me. We had a very rough patch when our only son was diagnozed with Schizorphenia which dogged him for 14 years. He eventually died two years after my husband in 1996. Then I developed a problem with my back which Doctors diagnozed to be Disk Degenerative Disease. I had to undergo a 5-hour operation to release the nerve sheaths of my legs which had been entrapped between the disks. I was OK for some time but the problem returned, but this time to the right leg only. However, on seeking a 2nd opinion, I was advised not to undergo another operation. But by the Grace of God, the pain I used to suffer especially during the cold weather, which necessitated that I take pain 3 different kinds of pain killers simultaneously(Voltaren, Chorzoxazone/Paracetamol (Myospaz)and Codeine/Doxylamine succinate (Betapyn) whenever I had to leave home – say to attend Church on Sunda – has slowly lessened after attending several Healing Prayer Sessions and Holy Masses (I am a Roman Catholic).
However, I came to realise I was suffering from some kind of mental probem when I was unable to sleep for four consecutive days and nights and ended up by breaking down with hallucinations and total disorientation and my daughters had to get me into hospital where I stayed for 2 weeks. That was in October, 2007. Since then I have been on Tegretol and Quetiapine (Quitpin) medication. And when I am hit by either an unexplained bout of anxiety or depression I take Bromazepam (Lexotanil) when I go to bed. If I miss taking these medications, I can never fall asleep. So, it looks like I shall have to take them all my life!!!
Until I read your Website, I had never heard about Bipolar disorder and one one had ever told me what I have been suffering from. Worse and frightening still, was not knowing what caused me destroy my beloved late husband’s photographs one day in a sudden fit of anger from nowhere and the Doctor who treated me in Hospital never told me what was wrong with me. If he ever told my daughters, they have never even discussed that sad episode with me up to this day. I have regretted destroying my husband’s photographs to this day and whenever I remember that incident, I really get depressed.
I would very much appreciate any advice from the friends on this Website, and a word of encouragement once in a while.
When I visited my Doctor a month ago, I asked him point blank if I was mad. He categorically told me that I have never been, I am not, and I will never be mad. He just told me the problem was that when I had any emotional pressure or anything worring me – like my children or my grandchildre’s problems where I had no means of helping them – that worry caused me distress which manifested itself in a sort of depression and loss of sleep. I had to believe him because I needed someone to re-assure me I have not been mad all these years without knowing.
God bless you all and thank you for reading my unfortunate situation. Looking back I really feel bad that I made my family so unhappy with my unpredictable and unexplainable burts of anger, irritability, picking up quarells with my poor loving husband and generally making everybody’s life at times unbearable. Though I can never undo the past, I am hoping having come onto your Website, I will somehow be able to deal with my problem and not scare my daughters ever again by having to be hospitalized.
I am a supporter of my daughter who is thirteen. Mixed moods has been a common phenomena for her as she many times has that when her meds are not right. She finally seems to be stable after a 6 month period of mixed states and periods of highs and lows.
Thanks for the emails and stories as well I can relate to em all. I too am Bi Polar and so is a nephew I have. Reading these have helped some..Thank you for sending these to me too
Dave,
I’m a supporter of a bi-polar woman. But I’m finding out it’s way too taxing on me. I’ve read your articles and one stated that you needed to maintain your own sanity. Well, I’m having problems with that right now.
I, just moved here a few month ago to be with her. Three days after I got here, she started going off on me. I, thought Oh No! I’ve dealt with bi-polar women before and I stated to her when we met all about it. That I can’t deal with it any longer. So she knew right from the beginning!
She knew she had a problem but never stated so. Since I’ve been here, it’s been nothing but problems! One minute they love you, the next they hate you. One minute they’re calling you name and screaming, the next hugging and kissing you and wanting sex.
I, let her know that I knew she had a problem and asked her how long had she been this way. She said nothing!
I, let her know that I’m here for her and that I love her, but now she wants me to leave. I, gave up a lot to be with here in Kansas City, I, was in Atlanta.
She knows that she decieved me and doesn’t care.
What I’ve had to deal with, is that every woman I’ve been with that has suffered from this is that they’ve ALL been either raped or molested! By whomever…..
It’s not just one or two women, but all for the last many years. First wife, second wife and all in between… I, know who done it to them and when!
My question is and I’d love an answer to it is,
Why do I attract these women? I, don’t search for them, they come to me! Wether it’s next door or a thousand miles away! I, can set in church all by myself, not paying attetion to anyone, and their in my face, I, go out dancing and stand in a corner by myself and their in my face.
Why?
I, can’t deal with this any longer! It has cost me dearly! Businesses, bank accounts, personal belongings till now, I’m just a broke ass ol man! This one wants me to just move out into the streets. With no place to go and can’t afford to do so. Even though I’m working. But just moved here and trying to get on my feet.
Wayne Wilkins