chicken / egg

how do you know if your 'great ideas' are a result of hypomania or what spurs it?

Because my life and career are oriented around creative production, this is not something that happens only randomly/once in awhile. I'm always 'supposed' to be working on what others might only do in certain states of mind (or so it seems from reading here). However, I experience very distinct periods of extremely energetic creativity, and periods when my mind feels like mud and even imagining trying to come up with an original thought is difficult and makes me want to give up.

I guess my question is, how can I tell if I 'can't think' because I'm depressed, or if I'm depressed because I can't think/what I'm doing is hard and overwhelming? Likewise, how do I know if I am simply happy and excited over my own ideas and progress, versus the ideas coming from a hypomanic state?

While it might not seem to matter much, this is basically the heart of all my current issues - because my ideas almost always end up spinning out of control and then crashing to the ground. Once this happens repeatedly, it is hard to know when/how to trust oneself...plus I would love more than anything to know how to harness this force in a way that doesn't end up hurting so badly...it's almost like I need to be forced to put it all down as soon as I feel that speedy feeling getting the best of me (easy to say in retrospect of course).

Anyway, I suppose I'm just wondering how others distinguish, and for suggestions on how to focus and retain some sort of perspective so as not to end up in a rut (btw i'm trying to manage w/o meds)