Thanks for the replies everyone!

I agree that I've heard from so many bipolar people with sleep issues that I'm having a little trouble believing that in all those cases it's just a coincidence. My feeling is that there's just something about bipolar disorder and a messed up circadian rhythm.

I was on Seroquel for a while, and slept very well on it. I loved that about it, I never had to worry about sleeping soundly. Currently I'm not using Seroquel, and I feel pretty strongly about not going back on an anti-psychotic unless I absolutely have to, for health reasons. However, if nothing else I try works and the alternative is a lifetime of insomnia, then I'll consider going back to a low dosage of Seroquel. For now, though, I think there's still more I can try.

I was never a great sleeper, I always used to wake up frequently and was very sensitive to the switch to daylight saving time every year. But it definitely used to be better than this. I could always get back to sleep fairly easily, even though I did wake up a lot. Like some others here have mentioned, the worst of my insomnia started around my late twenties/early thirties, and especially when I had kids. Now I tend to wake up and then be unable to get back to sleep, or only a half sleep, even when there's no noise or anything from kids. It's like a part of my brain just "activates," and I can't do anything about it regardless of how much I try relaxation exercises or sleep hygiene stuff (it feels so unfair). I also had ****** neighbors for a few years who were noisy at night and wreaked havoc on my sleep. Luckily we've now moved to a new house where it's better, so far, but I still tend to be a little paranoid about people making noise at night. Hopefully that will fade over time.

When I was in my early puberty I went through several time periods where I would have sleep paralysis every night for a few weeks. I would wake up after a few hours and be unable to move, and I would see all kinds of scary stuff. I didn't know what sleep paralysis was at the time, so it was pretty scary and I was afraid to sleep. I had several periods of a few weeks like that, on and off for a few years, and then it went away. I haven't had it now for a long time.

At this point I guess the early morning daylight/running strategy is my best bet, so I'll try that in addition to my regular sleep hygiene approach. I also have C-PTSD issues in addition to my bipolar, which I think I can try to work on with my therapist now that I'm finally approaching something like euthymia again. Before, the bipolar symptoms were just so severe and acute that it overruled everything else. Maybe dealing with some of the traumatic stuff that happened last year, as well as childhood stuff, will also help with sleep and stress levels. I only hope that these sleep issues don't trigger a relapse and undo all the progress I made with ECT, because I'm so happy to finally feel almost like myself again...