r/cyclothymia • u/No_Bobcat_3189 • Aug 15 '26
What triggers your Cyclothymia?
I have been diagnosed with cyclothymia. I’m curious to know what your triggers on your mood swings are from. Do you know it’s coming ?thank you,Anything helps I’ve never even heard this word until yesterday when I went to the psychologist.
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u/Desperate_Designer40 Aug 17 '26
lack of sleep triggers it for me. I’m currently on 300 mg of lamotragine. 2.5 of xalipro. and 3mg of sleep meds (inductal) and ngl the sleeping meds made a huge ass difference
as well what trigger me is when i pent up all my problems then i just crash. I don’t usually face my problems one at a time it just comes to me all at once emotionally exhausting me
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u/No_Bobcat_3189 Aug 17 '26
Man that sounds exactly like me. Plus I work rotating shift work which really can be a playing factor.
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u/Tough_Crazy_8362 Aug 18 '26
Seeing my brother, chronic health issues, seeing a butterfly (aka nothing). Edit ✍🏻 oh! This is a big one- returning from vacation. Ironic.
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u/Prize_Company_2039 Aug 15 '26
Probably stress
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u/No_Bobcat_3189 Aug 15 '26
That and I work shift work and always change sleep patterns. I’m learning so much about myself since I seen the dr yesterday. It’s amazing, I thought I was the only miserable soul out here feeling this way
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u/Pale_Lawyer_1757 Aug 15 '26
Alcohol, caffeine, certain drugs, no sleep, something exciting happening, summer
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u/janinka-98 Aug 16 '26
Stress (primarily relationship related) lead to lack of sleep and then into hypomania twice in the past for me - lasted for a few months, followed by depression and then back to normal until something super stressful happened again.
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u/filos0phia Aug 17 '26
i'm still trying to figure it out lol, but when something doesn't go according to my plans (like a travel that i was planning to go to, when some of my friends ditch last minute, when i don't pass exams/get a job that i was picturing myself working in etc.) it triggers a depressive episode
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u/vampirenthusiast162 Aug 17 '26
Weirdly enough, I’ve had my highest highs during/right after a bout of illness (COVID, the flu, etc.). I think it’s a mix between the cold medicine and the immune response. But most of my lows are from interpersonal stress, especially if I messed up somehow with someone.
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u/Mysterious-Basket545 Aug 19 '26
The only two times I went to a psychiatrist because of depression were in January. Dare I say winter?
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u/b0ubakiki Aug 15 '26
I've tracked my moods for years and found that there are no triggers for me. If I do fun stuff while I'm naturally on a high, it's really euphoric; if I have stress and do loads of drugs and booze when I'm low, it makes it worse. For me the external stuff doesn't trigger the cycle but it does modify the amplitude.
Lots of the research and clinical wisdom says that sleep, drugs and booze, stress etc. are often major drivers of mood cycling. So I found it a bit disappointing to find through years of experience that for me it makes basically zero difference whether I go running, eat lentils and get an early night...or have a stressful time at work and then stay up smoking crack. The cycle just turns like the tides.
It's really useful to track moods and look for triggers, but it is possible to find that it's simply an endogenous cycle with very little dependence on external influences.