Thanks joneszy for the clarification..sounds like Im a bipolar mutt

Ha ha. Bipolar mutt. Sounds like an interesting username.

Hahahayour right iam that would be a great username

No problem Pagan. That's what my pcp put on my paper when I visited her, so I did some research because I was curious as to what it meant. And I like the name of bipolar mutt :)

I've seen nothing that says cylothemia develops into BP1. I've seen stuff that says something like a third of people diagnosed with cyclothemia go to Bipolar 2.

However, you need to get this. Cyclothemia has hypomania the same as BP2. It's only in the depression that they differ. Cyclothemia has moderate depression and BP2 a severe episode. But you only need one bad episode of depression and you are marked as BP2.

So it may not be that it naturally progresses - it's just chances are you were BP2 all along and you just didn't have a weeks worth of depression that counted as severe.

Oooh. That makes it clearer. Scary but at least now I understand. Oh boy-o

I'm an example of dx cyclothymia morphing into BPll. From what I have read, theories conflict about this change (but also about BP in general!). I seem to retain symptoms of cyclothymia, (in my case, fairly rapid cycling), but my depressive lows are very long lasting, deep, and refractory (difficult to treat successfully). This move towards depression can be due to any number of factors interacting. In my case, I wish I had taken anxiety more seriously because I think it worsened my depression. Years after my first dx I read that anxiety is often comorbid with bipolar disorder. I don't think anyone really knows why, but as Acuriuosfish pointed out, many relationships are statistical and not necessarily understood.

P.S. Many doctors forget that mental health issues are largely theoretical. I my experience.

grrrr.

Lucky for me my docs are taking my anxiety seriously so I have benzos for that. still feel like they could be doing more though.

Kind of an OT question, but, what's the difference between moderate depression and severe depression?

I think the different is( I could be wrong) between moderate and severe depression is if a patient has constant thoughts of harming themselves, or attempts too, it is severe depression.

http://www.healthcentral.com/depression/c/4182/128686/mild-difference/

That might help

I was diagnosed bipolar nos when I was diagnosed at 11 I'm off meds right now and so far no major swings whatsoever everything is level right now for how long idk but when I got the diagnosis I was always in and out of mania hypomania and a few depressive episodes the mania was more prominent than anything

Thanks Lea and iam.

That's a very good article and makes a lot of sense, kinda scary too. Yikes. Sometimes my depression comes on slowly, from mild and then slowly shifts to moderate and then severe. But also at times, it'll just. Come full force and I'll go from being in a really good to severe depression in a matter of hours.

It's like that for me sometimes too Joneszy