Quote:
Originally Posted by Ralau
Hello.
I would like to hear about your experiences - is it possible to be hypomanic and sleep nearly normally?
I have recently stopped taking my mood stabilizer because I felt depressed and tired all the time. I do have ADs and I still take them but not very regularly. Also I kind of started thinking that I am not bipolar at all.
Now I have times when I stay awake for two or three days straight, or with very little sleep (4h). Then after that I sleep for 10 hours. I know this isnīt a normal sleep pattern, but I donīt think I suffer from very much of sleep deprivation. But I do have some weird symptoms though. At times Iīm very restless and just pace around in my apartment (it feels a bit like anxiety or something - like I should get out of my skin), I feel huge desire to be social and talk and I get frustrated if there is nobody to talk to, I have been cleaning in my house a lot recently, and the need to be social and stuff is just killing me. The only thing that calms me down is shopping. Iīve been shopping online and also I went shopping yesterday as a result of a "restlessness attack". I spent three times as much money as I was supposed to, but I think I do have some control left.
I donīt know what it is, but at times I am sure that I will become something great and Iīm also very pissed by other people because they donīt realize my value and respect me enough. Maybe Iīm just narcissist.
I guess I just want to know if it is possible to be hypomanic without very much of sleep deprivation, because right now I doubt my diagnosis. I think that I only have recurrent depression.
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Personally, I don't know if going two to three days with no or very little sleep and then sleeping 10 hours is getting a normal amount of sleep. Eventually your body will just crash into sleep, even if you don't feel sleep deprived. I think there is a focus more on the one day you get normal sleep rather than the 2 or 3 days you are getting no sleep. I don't sleep well in general, especially when I'm hypomanic/manic, but when I am like this I can get 3 - 4 hours of sleep every single night and still never "feel" sleep deprived.
I would talk to your pdoc more about bipolar disorder and why you feel you have this diagnosis. Talk about your concerns of having this versus just depression. Ask what is it about your symptoms that makes a bipolar diagnosis more appropriate than a depression diagnosis? Your pdoc can and should answer this question.
I CANNOT and should not give you a diagnosis, I can only tell you about my personal experiences. For me, almost everything you described (the restlessness, the pacing, the wanting to be social, the obsessive cleaning, the impulsive outlet, the feeling like I'm great) is clear hypomania/mania for me. I don't really get angry at people for not realizing I'm great, but I just get angry and pissed off in general, at anything. I NEVER stay as consistent with my meds, will stop and start meds all the time, when I'm manic. Much more consistent with meds when I'm depressed because when you are depressed you more easily feel like something is "wrong" and you want help. Just recently, I was manic for several months, and it wasn't until I crashed into severe depression that what I thought was "normal" was actually "manic". I told a doctor recently that what I think is "normal" is actually "hypomanic", I just think it's normal at the time, if that makes sense. I was incorrectly diagnosed as being depressed for almost a decade before I was diagnosed with bipolar. As much as I hated, and still hate, the diagnosis almost another 10 years since being diagnosed, it makes more sense for me. I absolutely cannot take antidepressants anymore, once I learned they made me hypomanic/manic.
Regardless of what is going on with you, whatever the diagnosis may be, it can take awhile to find the right meds for you, and even then, they will likely have to adjust over time. Hopefully you will find a good combination of meds soon.
