[Rennerenner]

Hey all.

So I was wondering if any of you experience sub-threshold hypomania -- that is -- are there times where you experience symptoms of hypomania, but not enough to qualify for actual hypomania?

For example, sometimes I'll get racing thoughts, but nothing else. Last night I couldn't fall asleep for the life of me, the thoughts just kept coming and it was like I couldn't just calm down without something new popping into my head. Sometimes they aren't even coherent thoughts or ideas, just gibberish. I think I briefly fell asleep around 3am (I went to bed at 12) but woke up minutes later with a kind of restless euphoria, were I just wanted to squirm around in bed and touch everything (that sounds strange written down haha >_>). So that lasted a bit and then I guess I fell asleep eventually because I woke up to my alarm this morning at 6.

Anyone else experience this or other things without having much other symptoms that would qualify it as hypomania?

[Odee]

I think we'd be excessively curtailing the full normal range of emotions someone can experience outside of an episode if we started concerning ourselves with hypo-hypomania or other sub-threshold symptoms.

What you felt could have easily been experienced inexplicably by anyone.

[BipolaRNurse]

This is one of the things that has been hardest for me to learn in the year since I was diagnosed---what is normal, everyday human experience vs. what is the illness---and I'm finally getting to the point where I'm NOT over-thinking every single emotion or slightly-out-of-character behavior.

I don't know where you are in the process of coming to terms with your own illness, but you'd be well-advised to avoid driving yourself crazy (literally) by looking for signs of BP behind every late night, every stray thought. Easy enough to say, hard as hell to do, but well worth the effort.

[Rennerenner]

Hey guys thanks for the responses. It's been a little over half a year since I was diagnosed. I totally know what you mean in not over thinking everything, I'm really doing a lot better at that, this was just a passing curiosity.

I just mentioned it because I could tell it wasn't regular insomnia as it had hints of that typical hypomanic euphoric feeling to it, but I only had those two symptoms, so I was just curious if it was normal to experience stray symptoms outside of an episode.

I was just curious, not obsessing or over analyzing.

[Voltin]

Beginning to understand BP after 3 years , I have not even scratched the surface for me it seems . To comes to terms with it , I've had to over think every emotion . When there is an emotion, I mentally go into ' check mode' , how else do I finally hit a point of knowing what I haven't recognized, is not a healthy behavior I keep repeating. I'm a fish that was yanked out of the water of what I thought was normal . Trying to differentiate BP from 'normal' , that has taken me to think the entire population of the earth is not normal . I am working on over thinking , but until I get a handbook with a short version of how to put this together in laywoman terms ...

[Rennerenner]

Originally Posted by Voltin

Beginning to understand BP after 3 years , I have not even scratched the surface for me it seems . To comes to terms with it , I've had to over think every emotion . When there is an emotion, I mentally go into ' check mode' , how else do I finally hit a point of knowing what I haven't recognized, is not a healthy behavior I keep repeating. I'm a fish that was yanked out of the water of what I thought was normal . Trying to differentiate BP from 'normal' , that has taken me to think the entire population of the earth is not normal . I am working on over thinking , but until I get a handbook with a short version of how to put this together in laywoman terms ...

I totally know what you mean, it's like just living without analyzing all my feelings can be difficult at times.

[hamster-bamster]

Originally Posted by Odee

I think we'd be excessively curtailing the full normal range of emotions someone can experience outside of an episode if we started concerning ourselves with hypo-hypomania or other sub-threshold symptoms.

What you felt could have easily been experienced inexplicably by anyone.

So well said!