Expletives Included
I was going to write more, but figured, ahhh, screw it. Thought I would share a snippet of what I’ve been reading the last few evenings. Very interesting…but even more interesting are the personal accounts that some people have. There are very VERY many parallels. No, it’s not me I am reading about…
Mixed Episode
SYMPTOMS
A mixed episode is not a disorder itself, but rather is a description of a type of bipolar disorder.
A mixed epsiode is defined by meeting the diagnostic criteria for both a manic episode as well as a major depressive episode nearly every day for at least a full week.
Like most mental disorders, a mixed episode must be severe enough to cause distress or impairment in social, occupational, education or other important functioning and is not better accounted for by the physiological effects of substance use or abuse (alcohol, drugs, medications) or a general medical condition
Criteria summarized from:
American Psychiatric Association. (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, fourth edition. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.(Source)
Back and forth, back and forth. I hate you don’t leave me.
Usually, people like this only atypically have psychotic features. Having spent much time in a psych warn I have seen people with this. Of the people I saw, only one had psychotic features. He was schizophrenic very slightly, but that is included with the mixed episode. When he was manic, he wasn’t manic-manic, but more hypomanic. He of course was manic because he had the psychosis then as well, when he heard violent voices. When he was in his depressive moods he heard voices telling him to commit suicide but they were more prevalent. He was in agony physically until he was stabilized. He would scream violently because his “stomach is caving in.” I thought it was a panic attack at first but he said it wasn’t from anxiety, it was from a hopeless feeling (I have felt this type of dysphoric depression myself, but it is just from Major Depression). In his manic episodes he wasn’t as dysphoric, yet he was still very sad mostly. He would tell the voices to shut up. He would never talk very rapidly though, nor do any kind of projects, nor would he really have delusions of grandiosity. There’s more to it, but it was obvious he was acting like a hypomanic person, but with psychotic features. Which is pretty odd.
In general, the others seemed the be the same way. One girl screamed from headaches caused by her sadness. But in general it was hard to tell if they were hypomanic or depressive other than the fact that they would either be completely dysphoric or just pretty dysphoric. Mostly this was treated with Depakote, but in one hospital it was treated with Risperidone. The psychosis was treated with Apripipazole along with Depakote.
It’s just like a really crappy form of Bipolar II. You’re just in anguish and agony all of the time. But it’s not so back-and-forth from what I’ve seen. But I’ve only seen like five cases. What was your experience or is it already written somewhere?
It’s not a personal experience referring as happening to me – but it is personal in that it is someone who was/is close to me. The cut/paste/cite here was very vague. I’ll shoot you a message via email to further explain. From what you describe, yes, the person you refer to was experiencing some odd things (granted, I clearly do not know as much as you do about this whole subject). I’ll write more via email.
When I said that the others were generally the same, I mean in every way other than the psychotic features of voices. Although, I do think one girl was kind of grandiose sometimes. Not sure though.
Damn it. My email was also wrong. Apologies. My email is accurate now. I don’t know how that happened. Anyway, I’m Cavin on Myspace. =]]