Am I manic, or just not depressed?

For a while I was in a depression phase and have seemed to come out of it in the last few weeks. I can't tell if I'm just feeling "normal" or heading into a manic phase.

My energy is way up, but I still get tired and my mood fluctuates a little. I've been having trouble falling asleep because my thoughts are racing and I feel like I have a little ball of energy inside of me that needs to get out.

I don't know how I feel anymore. I don't know what's normal and what's not. My psychiatrist wants to put me on Lithium to help with the depression part of my bipolar (which is definitely the worst part of it and most debilitating).

Thanks.

Don't you hate it when you start second-guessing things? I know I do. It's like the healthy monitoring we're supposed to do turns into hypervigilance and we don't know what to believe.

I tend to ramp up after coming out of a depression. Not sure why, I just do. And I think it's even more dangerous for me than a manic episode just starting on its own from a normal mood because I'm so happy to be out of the depression and feeling better that the last thing I want to do is medicate it away!

As far as trying to tell where you're headed: do you chart your moods? If not, now might be a good time to begin, even simple things like the number of hours you sleep at night, increased irritability (had a rough encounter with a cashier? record it.); keep an eye on your typical manic behaviors: are you spending more, do you crave sex, starting new projects, whatever your manias typically look like. Sometimes when you simply record the individual observations, then you can step back and look at them all together and get a better idea of the big picture. It's also good for your pdoc to see it written out to help him judge it as well.

Hi DragonFly2, thanks for your response!

I haven't been tracking my mood, but it sounds like a good idea. Thanks for the suggestion. It's so hard to remember how I feel from week to week. I end up stumbling when my pdoc and tdoc ask me what my mood has been like.

Yeah, I've been irritable, mostly at small things with my family. Sleep has decreased a little. But overall energy is up during the day & not tired at night when I go to bed. And I hate to admit this, but yes, feelings of hypersexuality.

Thinking about it in terms of individual symptoms, then yeah, it's probably a manic episode.

I'm just happy not to be depressed.

Yeah, I know how you feel. When I get to that point, I try to enjoy what I can and just keep an eye on things so they don't get out of hand. The mood charting helps me with that, especially the sleep charting.

Glad to hear you're feeling better.