Quote:
Originally Posted by bluebicycle
I hope this helps:
I wasn't diagnosed as bipolar until August 2015. In the past, I was diagnosed as having ADHD and MDD, so I didn't know what a hypomanic episode was or when one was occurring. Once I was diagnosed as bipolar, I started becoming more aware of my emotions, and I worked with my therapist to identify when I was experiencing hypomania. My therapist even said that it's difficult for many people to identify because everyone experiences hypomania differently. (The textbook definition is only that: a textbook definition. Plenty of people fit in the "NOS" category, which doesn't fit the textbook definition, so please consider that.)
It helps to keep track of your emotions, either mentally or on paper. Just write journal entries about your day and you'll start to see patterns. It can be a little boring, but when you think you're experiencing hypomania, you can look back at your previous entries and compare.
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Yeah, see, I was diagnosed with ADD and MDD as well, interestingly. And I do think I'm ADD. However, I'm able to take Adderall without "bouncing off the walls" as my old therapist put it. And it helps me a lot. Still, after a couple of years of consideration and attention to fluctuations, I do think that I might get hypomanic, and suspect I did before I really started seriously considering that I might be somewhere on the Bipolar spectrum. I've been fairly vigilant about tracking in one way or another since the fall of 2014. I don't always write notes, though. Mainly my tracking is through apps. (Btw, Ginger.io is a very good app for tracking and support.) I always forget to look back at notes. :/