Your personal experiences with hypomania

Love this thread. Where have you people been all my life?

Flights of ideas (which is EXTREMELY useful in my career — I'm a freelance writer). Difficulty sleeping. Racing brain. Grandiosity, but self-conscious about it. Lots of anxious distress, getting worse and worse the longer the hypomania is going on. Lots of impulsivity... but I'm like that the rest of the time, too.

Had a long, intense hypomanic episode this summer. The hypersexuality made it pretty interesting. Had my first threesome. Had my first fivesome (which is how I met my girlfriend!). Lots of nights at a local sex club with various people. My sexlife has always been really feast-or-famine (hooking up with people while I was hypomanic... and then no sexlife at all, all winter, while I was depressive)... but it'd never been crazy like this summer!

General euphoria. Everything is like totally, 100% the best. I can actually start a conversation with a stranger. Lot's of art projects. Projects where usually the startup costs are more than I can afford. More money I don't have spent of other hobbies.

Last time I was hypo I tried to start a Beastie Boys cover band to perform Paul's Boutique Iive (I've never been on stage in my life), I spent $1200 on a kiln and supplies for fusing glass (overdrawing my acct by about $500) and I sent two 1000+ word emails to the girl who broke my heart.

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I was just thinking about this thread today, I'm glad it's revived yay!

Anyway I resonate with your experience. I started a business and fashion blog while hypo and while that in itself is not unusual considering I'm a creative person that fact that I spent so much money on the clothes I was to sell and also spent a grand on a professional camera because I was convinced I was going to be big in the blogging world was odd behaviour for me. I, of course crashed and realised that I actually hated selling clothes and fashion blogging was not for me at all. I get very obsessed and energised about ideas but then I start getting more anxious, more irritable and finally depressed

I am not in my right mind when hypomanic and I end up becoming obsessed with things that are actually not for me. Tbh, it doesn't bother me too much as it does show me what I don't want in life so I don't regret anything even though I lost a lot of money.

Feel like caffeine is flowing through my vains, slurred speech ( think drunk person trying to act sober) , my leg shakes a billion times per hour, I actually call people instead of text, I bake and make more than my stove and oven can handle at one time (think a kitchen full of things waiting to go in the oven while all 4 burners are being used), play fighting with my. dog, word vomit and of couse higher sex drive.

I have more confidence in self, energy and motivation to do things, more ideas, interests, maybe walk and talk more and faster.

Well when I was younger I had so much fun but risky behavior. When my mom would take my son there was lots of sex, and partying. I would go days without sleeping and the men in my life felt used, bc I would get bored and kindly break up with them and find another. Men and sex (I had an extremely high sex drive) were a big part of my hypos.

Now that I'm older my hypos are more about my apt and decorating it, being super mom and starting projects like making jewelry. But I need to keep all that behind me, idk...

ME TOO! Right down to it being mice! hahaha.

When I'm hypomanic I do the following:

- sleep very little and don't bother trying to stay in bed
- clean a lot more obsessively
- start lots of new hobbies
- I always get new story ideas to write
- start new healthy eatin diets or exercise
- talk people's ears off
- want to spend my money (usually on things for new hobbies!)
- I either have the attention span of a gnat, or I'm absolutely obsessive about what I'm doing
- often get ideas to research something of interest and do so for hours
- want to go out and drink/party more often
- overshare information with people
- much more likely that I'll say something a bit more "blunt" when I'm out drinking if something pisses me off
- I actually feel confident about myself
- listen to music more often and more likely to have it be top-hits kind of music.

Hmm, well I can relate to some of yous,
1. Get the dual battery-energy
2. Get cool ideas, jot down projects & stuff I'm gonna do. (I've got countless of story ideas I want/have wanted to write into short stories or a book, but only a few short stories is what I'm left with, I always get cool paintings done though.)
3. A lot of the times I tend to clean the appartment (because I never else really care)
4. Discover some things I've left on hold and finish them.
5. Get interested in everything, do research.
6. Turn all my introvertism outward and love to be really social.
7. Get obsessive thoughts sometimes - an extreme example for my case: I once got really angry for a seemingly random reason, saw my Dracula book on the desk that I hadn't got around to finishing in like half a year, decided that the book was the cause of all my troubles, took it with me, cycled for a few km's, burned the book, did a cig & dropped it on the book, pissed on the book, spit on the book and cycled furiously back home.
8. Oh yeah and almost forgot - huge confidence boost. View myself very differently.

Something I've noticed though, is that most of you seem to get insomnia, which I don't really relate with, although lately I've been getting around 5-7 hours of sleep most of the week days for months, so maybe I don't quite remember the feel, I just know I'm very... less tired so to say o.O Staying up for like two-three days straight has never happened to me.
That's the best I can do, kind of hard for me to describe it as such.

I also do so much of those things. I should write them all out. I forgot about obsessing over different subjects, feeling really sexy, (more when I was younger though), cleaning obsessively, I still do that. When I would be in a depression my apt would get really bad. But then spring and summer would roll around and it was like clean, clean, clean. Oh and I would think about starting New organization like for foster children and endangered species. But then depression would creep in. Man I haven't been looking over here or posting but this is making me realize that this illness is serious. Especially thinking about how horrible my depressions would get.

I love this post. I'm depressed right now, so it is good for me to remember that I won't be depressed forever and they hypo will return.

For me it feels like the dark clouds over my brain give way to the most gorgeous sun. Regardless of the actual weather, in my head it is perfect. I feel so optimistic, so hopeful, like anything is possible. Music sounds better, hugs feel better, sex is definitely better. I have so many great ideas and I want to do so many things. Time flies by. This is the opposite of being depressed for me where the hours of the day go by so slowly that it is very hard for me to get through the day.

When hypo, I look up at the clock and wonder where the time has gone. My energy is unlimited. Occasionally the euphoria gives way to severe agitation. Sadly my family feels the brunt of this. When I am depressed I don't care if my kids are messy, but when hypo I yell at them for leaving food out, etc. The world seems to be moving in slow motion and I get frustrated by that. But over all….everything is just better and God is very close to me, like I can reach out and touch him.

My hypomanic cycles have nearly always been mixed so, it's mostly odd obsessions, jittery irritation, paranoia ( everybody hates meeeeee), hostile hypersexuality ( satisfy me or ELSE!), lots of feeling unreal as opposed to euphoric, feeling dead inside but with lots of energy anyway, horrible imagery going through my head while staring at the walls.... fun fun fun