ABSTRACT
I always felt that I experienced depression in a cyclical fashion and that I could feel my mood slipping over a long period of time before it “bottomed out” and started coming back up again. Sometimes, the transition was very fast, but on reflection I think that this is just the final stage of the mood drop and that the background change was still probably over a longish period—a bit like the funnel shape of going into a black hole—the last bit is the steepest. I also used to have what were probably manic episodes, especially when I was younger—I used to quite enjoy these periods of intense energy and drive, apart from the fact that you knew there would be the negative payback at some point. I’m sure I was probably hard to live with at those times too!
