A personal Account of Cyclothymia 

Dear Friends, 

I'm still very unhappy about this Wikipedia page on Cyclothymia and I see that it has got even worse recently due to these copy-right problems. People will naturally be turning to Wikipedia as a first step to find out something about Cyclothymic Personality Disorder and they will be unaware of the controversies surrounding it e.g. that it is even disputed to be a personality disorder. http://s13.zetaboards.com/TheCollective/index/ and http://www.chatarea.com/TheCyclothymiaCollective appeared to have died since I last visited them so active discussion with other people who have been diagnosed or hope to be diagnosed is not presently possible, so let me offer this letter for the casual enquirer to read about the actual symptoms of somebody who has been diagnosed as Cyclothymic. The reader will note from the complaint above that I am unhappy that the main article does not contain any warning about such 'mixed state' Cyclothymia which frequently causes misdiagnosis as depression resulting in medication with anti-depressants which makes the condition worse. My attempt to rectify that state of affairs resulted in my contribution being removed, so I will not waste any time on making a new ammendment. Please be kind enough to leave this in the discussion though. The following is not for diagnostic purposes but solely to provide the enquirer with a taste of the sorts of symptoms that can be diagnosed as Cyclothymia. I was diagnosed 16 years after the onset of these symptoms, and this is a letter applying to volunteer to be the subject of some research conducted by my local university.

Dear Dr X,
 
I recently participated in the Beating Bipolar research, I was in the control group. I was handed a letter inviting me to participate in your research involving an MRI scan which intrigues me. I was intending to write this email several weeks ago but I put it off because I wanted to write you an account of what happens to me in my disorder that has been diagnosed as Cyclothymia. Since I am not getting around to writing you a longer account let me write you a short account, because I would very much like to be put in that MRI scan twice. Once I know that I am becoming hyperthymic ( hypomanic ) I can roughly predict when I am going to be hypothymic ( depressed ). This is because my cycles are extremely regular - given a distinct stress such as losing a job or starting a relationship I can mark out in advance on a calender when I will be high ( at end of the fifth week following ) and when I will be low ( at the end of the seventh week following ) and when I will come out on a level again ( at the end of the twelth week following ). I've always felt that the mechanical predictability of this should intrigue researchers, and I believe that what has happened to me is that the stress response mechanism has had its period reset. This first happened when I was 19 circa September 1981 and has continued ever since, but it took me until I was 25 to clearly identify that it was a cycle because it had disrupted my life so much. Originally I believed that I was dealing with the sort of kaleidoscope of problems that perhaps are typical of young people but having dealt with those problems with various counselling psychologies I was left facing a problem that could not be taken away. By the age of 35 I was chronically depressed because of the host of problems that came in its wake - unemployment, poverty, social isolation and depression - and my doctor at the time wrote me off onto Sick Benefit. This resulted in an interview with the Department of Social Security doctor who not only recognised that I was being discriminated against in employment but diagnosed me as having cyclothymia of a mixed state variety and recognised that doctors had kept interpretting my presenting symptoms as acute depression. I have since been moved onto Incapacity Benefit and have been monitored by a psychiatrist ever since, presently Dr X of the Community Mental Health Team in the X clinic.
 
I'd prefer to present this with diagrams, but it's not possible in an email - please feel free to draw your own !
 
The Basic Cycle
 
There is a stress event - a good example is a car crash that I was in with my partner at the time in which the car somersaulted down the ditch and yet we got out of it only bruised. She was shaking and very excitably upset at the time, couldn't sleep that night and the following day was tearful but then slept properly and was fairly normal the following day but wouldn't drive. She was bemused that I was so calm, arranged for help, drew a measured sketch map, slept well except for the bruises and drove us the 200 miles home. My own response to this stressful event was similar to hers only my excitable state came five weeks later and my depressed state seven weeks after the event. I was on a