Jellies that have battled depression: have you found that good days are often followed by a "crash?"?

I get that a lot. It got to the stage where I would be having such a great day, that I would know the next day was going to be dammed awful. So I would stay up later, result even worse next day. But I was diagnosed Bipolar rapid cycling o no idea if my answer helped loll.

Sure. I mean, what better way to punish yourself than to beat the fuck out of your own head for daring to think that life could be better. What? One day and you think you’re out of the woods? Fuck you, self.

I have found that there is a depression cycle. It used to be every 6–7 months, then several years back went to about every three months and is back up now to about 7. It may or may not fall around the holiday season or the winter months.
It just comes in on jackbooted feet, hangs around making me a miserable sod, then moves on. to paraphrase (badly) Mr. Sandburg.

Oh, yeah. It’s like you’re reminded that next day that the good day was a fluke, and that makes you even more depressed. If it happens a lot, though, you might be bi-polar.

This question is in ’Social ’ and has only got 4 answers?

@augustlan that was what worried me, but I’ve been in and out of therapy for the better part of the last 15 years, and that has never even been suggested. Is it that easy to miss?

…...er…...5 answers.

@Seek_Kolinahr that seems extremely accurate.

@DigitalBlue It could be missed, if they’re not aware that you’re cycling. If every time a therapist sees you, you’re depressed rather than manic, and if you’ve never mentioned the moods shifting, I imagine they could miss the diagnosis.

Absolutely:

I’d keep depression at bay by road cycling for up to eight hours a day. Once the ride was completed I’d fall into depression with the thought “Now what do I do?”

That’s why drinking at clubs was so appealing:

Between obsessing over my shave, hair, makeup and clothes, driving an hour to get to Tampa, drinking, dancing, seeing and being seen then slipping into tomorrow in the back seat as it’s a friend’s turn to pilot us home my day was pretty well covered through to the end.

That did an effective job of keeping the crash from being experienced.

I had the opposite experience recently. I’ve been doing well for a year or two now, but I found myself starting to get depressed recently, when the days were noticeably darker. Each day was a little worse and I was trying to decide whether I was really getting depressed or not. Then came a day when I was pretty bad. My Wundy suicide index leaped from a 1 to a 10 almost overnight—as in how much suicide was appearing in my thoughts.

Fortunately I have some very good friends who know what to do to care for me.

The next day, I felt back to normal. Just like that! I mean, wonderful! But a little scary to move around so precipitously.

Today was not so good, but there are a couple of reasons for that, and I am coping with them at the moment. So I don’t think this will get worse. But it could be a rocky winter.

But my point is that bad days can be followed by good ones as easily as good ones can be followed by bad ones.