[Pastel Kitten]

I've been hypomanic for a week now. I've been primarily feeling great, with tons of energy, motivation, and confidence. I got myself involved with an extremely large project that I found myself working on for almost 24 hours with little to no break in between. That's done now, but when I tried to sleep afterwards, I found myself horribly restless and irritated. I felt like there were ants in my legs trying to burst out. At the same time, I felt strangely paranoid that there was someone in my room with me other than my boyfriend and every little noise startled me awake whenever I finally dozed off. I finally managed to get a good amount of sleep for the first time this week, but the irritability came back after a few hours of being awake. It started with a headache and suddenly I found myself breaking down hard over something extremely minor. I remained feeling on edge and jittery all of yesterday but today I feel wonderful again. My energy is positive again and I'm full of ideas. I was afraid my irritability was going to be the beginning of a spiral back into depression. I'm not used to keeping track of my hypomanic episodes and behavior like this. I've only begun to do it recently when my counselor suggested it. Does anyone else experience random irritability mid-way through hypomania but return back to the "life is wonderful! I'm unstoppable!" feeling afterwards?

[Skeezyks]

Hello Pastel Kitten: Well... I don't have an answer to your question. But I just know, from my own experience, that when I get really busy & all "hyped up" as a result of some stuff I'm doing, it can take me quite a while to come back down. And I do, personally, find that when I am busy & stressed, I'm almost always short-tempered. The two seem to go together.

[Pastel Kitten]

That would make sense, but for me this irritability arises out of nowhere, when I was previously feeling great. It strikes at the most inconvenient times, over the most minor things or nothing at all (that's not to say that annoying circumstances don't trigger irritability as well, but it doesn't have to be from any particular cause while I'm hypomanic.) It's like my mind is moving at a faster rate than my body. Also, when I work on these huge projects while hypomanic I do not feel stressed at all. Quite the opposite actually..like I have a crazy abundance of energy that just can't be stopped! I had to be reminded several times by my boyfriend to even eat or drink. I didn't feel slight fatigue until I had been working for at least 11 hours