Many people think of manic depression as being something that causes frequent violent moodswings on a daily or even hourly basis. Although the extremes of mood are often severe, the cycle is over a relatively long period of time, even in the few (one in ten) bipolars who suffer rapid cycling. Rapid cycling is defined by more than 4 moodswings per year, so even this accellerated rhythm is much, much slower than most folks imagine. This is my mood chart for the past couple of years, from January 2006 to December 2007. It scores from zero (rock bottom) up to 10 (mania) with normal mood scoring 5 (the green line). You can see from my chart below that for most of the time I am depressed and that I currently seem to have an annual cycle which peaks each winter.
