Frequency of the more extreme highs and lows

Sometimes I wonder if maybe I have a milder form of BP, like cyclothymia, because of how widely spaced my extreme events are.

I don't go to the darkest place every year and I have never been suicidal. In the darkest place, I feel the utter hopelessness that everything I do is wrong and anything positive about me is just part of the facade. There is no higher power (I never believe there is) to lean on and no one really cares about me. I curl up and cry without really knowing why sometimes. Nothing interests me except self medicating. I have made decisions that should have cost me my job and my marriage and maybe it has to some degree. A demotion instead of a firing and a marriage that is now just a shell. But somewhere, way deep in my psyche, I know that the darkness will end.

I get the mild, almost enjoyable, hypomania fairly often. Love the focus and how it feels to me when I am experiencing it, but hate the effect smug arrogance and unfiltered speech has on others' perception of my character. Others' opinions of me don't change much when my mood changes. Once in every great while, maybe every couple of years, I go a little further. I am immortal because I can defeat any disease and stop aging using the mental powers I have tapped into again and I am baffled by how I have ever forgotten how to do this and allowed my health to decline (normal aging). I don't dare tell anyone because I would end up in a mental hospital for all eternity. So I go about life as normally as I can but it's hard because other people's mundane lives play no part in the grand scheme of things but mine does. I play my part only because that's what I have to do until my greatness is revealed. But again, somewhere deep in the psyche is this nagging doubt that is my lifeline back to reality.

Most of my highs and lows are not nearly as extreme.

My more frequent depression is just being nearly devoid of feeling and the few feelings I have are mostly sad. I can roll right out of bed and get to work and manage to plow through enough stuff to be a valuable employee. I plan outings with the kids and follow through. I go fishing with others. I go through the motions without enjoying much of it, but do enjoy some of it. I call that breakthrough happiness (the opposite of breakthrough pain). The bad news is that the happiness is often drug/alcohol induced euphoria.

My more frequent hypomania is as described earlier; I become a pompous jackass who excels at his job other than having poor communication skills. But at least it feels good to me while it is happening and not much else does.

So I wonder if I should be defined by the more frequent low grade highs and lows with some rare flares or if those extremes define me and I am just fortunate that they are moderated most of the time.

What's really going on is I am thinking out loud, trying to convince myself not to try to control the narrative at my pdoc appointment coming up in a couple of days. I am getting cold feet about how open I have been and worry about being branded with a diagnosis I don't want to hear. It isn't just the external stigma; I don't want to accept it and I am having some brief panic attacks thinking about it. It may seem like I have accepted it, but I am anonymous here and I can pretty easily convince myself this is all role playing.
In an odd way, it was a lot easier to get blind sided ~20 years ago. Abandoning the script I have stuck to since dismissing that diagnosis is very scary. I think that's why I keep plastering these walls of text all over the forum.

UpDownAround, it's ok to "plaster" all the "walls of text" in your threads, replies, you are fine with that. About feeling like you do, I do relate a lot, actually. The main difference between what you describe and me and is that I do go to extremes. Mostly despressive ones that lead to becoming suicidal or thinking of death, or even being hospitalized.

Aside from that, it seems like when I am somewhat depressed and my meds are not where they need to be, I need this "jump start" to get me going. I feel so out of it at times. I have seen this as a beginning of an episode. My moods going up and down, mostly neutral and then down. Not a whole lot of hypomania or mania. I am mostly called a serious type of personality. That's just how I am. Plus I notice melancholia being some sort of normal thing for days at a time. Not seriously depressed or even depressed, just a sort of slight low with a "pick me up," every once in a while. At least for myself I've learned to accept it. I hide out in the house and let that moment pass as it usually does and maybe it's not just a moment but a few days or so. Mood swings is what bipolar is all about. Not necessarily only extreme lows and highs but those lows and highs that can get us to the more extreme ones. Hugs if wanted.