I rapid cycle and have severe dysphoric mania which I think is the same as mixed episodes but I could be wrong.

As an example the last bad episode I had was particularly frightening. I was euphoric and delusional, thinking I was about to save the world. I was in my psychiatrist's office climbing up onto cupboards and leaping back to the floor. Then suddenly it was like a switch was flipped and I felt terrible. I climbed onto my psychiatrist's desk which was next to the window and was just about to jump through it (four storeys up) when she and my care manager pulled me off the desk. They had to press the emergency alarm and restrain me until the police arrived. Got taken to the police cells where the crisis doctor said he'd never seen someone so manic. Got taken by police to hospital. Once in hospital I bashed my head on the wall repeatedly so hard that I cracked my skull and my eyes were apparently swollen shut for three days. I say apparently because I woke up one day and found that five days had passed that I had no memory of. I was covered in bruises with about ten bandaids on my arse from the injections. Spent another month getting stabilised.

Usually I'm only extremely manic when I'm dysphoric so it may not be the same as mixed. I get impulsively suicidal and hurt myself without feeling any pain. It's the most painful thing I have ever experienced. I completely lose control of myself and have no memory of it. It's absolutely terrifying.

In terms of rapid cycling it switches every three weeks. My mood changes really suddenly to the point where I can notice the exact minute that it changed. As other people have said it's like feeling so great and being clever and creative and the next minutr being plunged into an abyss so deeply that you can't see the top any more.