YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

Does anyone else experience pretty big mood swings with unipolar depression?

I've been told I have unipolar depression and anxiety, and that it isn't bipolar depression type II because I haven't had a significant period of hypomania (that I can recall).

However, I can be feeling pretty good for up to a couple of weeks (even enjoying things and feeling hopeful) and then have up to a couple of weeks where my mood plummets and I feel scared and hopeless again. Sometimes I have a hard time even remembering what it was like to feel the other way, either good or bad, even when I'm only a day or two out of that mood because there's such a huge difference. Sometimes the mood changes seem to happen more quickly, many times over the course of a day. Sometimes it makes me feel like I'm two different people.

I guess I'm a little scared that I'm getting the wrong diagnosis.

You know, I've been glancing at Bipolar 2 lately as well, but like you I'm never hyper.

But I get mood swings, sometimes from one minute to the next. And it takes so much energy, to have such mixed feelings (even if my feelings are extremely low key).

I haven't been diagnosed as unipolar specificly, but I don't seem to tick the boxes for bipolar either.

Guess I'm just a sad-sack! Hurrah!

Thanks for the reply, Cami. I've been seeing a psychiatrist for about a month, and I asked him about it on Monday. He said it's not unusual to have these mood changes with unipolar depression. I'm sorry you experience this too!

At least we're not weird then