at what point does hypomania become full-blown mania?

How do you tell the difference between hypomania and just plain old mania? I mean, I definitely am having hypomanic symptoms: impulsivity (cleaned out my closet, weeded out books & sold them to a used bookstore, buying crap I don't need, driving while at least hypomanic before daughter hid my keys), little appetite, bad sleep, pressured speech & writing, delusions of grandeur (thinking all my ideas are brilliant and must be blurted out to everyone and that everyone wants to know every little thing I think or do, low filter I guess you'd say), WAY more talkative, irritability, etc. ad infinitum. I know hypomania is less severe than full-blown mania, but where's the line where you draw the difference?

Just curious.

From what you describe I would say that you h ave crossed the line.

Yikes, that is not good! I didn't think I was that bad. I was just wondering what to look out for in case I WAS.

I have a hard time seeing the line too. I think it moves lol. I've given up on distinguishing hypo from full blown and just try to look at the thoughts, emotions, behaviors, the effects of them, and the trend they're going in. (Going back to when I had a pdoc) if everything was manageable, no one was complaining too much, I wasn't doing things that are ridiculously risky, things weren't escalating quickly, I'd wait until the next appointment if it was within a couple weeks or otherwise move it up and set in some harm reduction things into place until then. If I knew I was going to hurt myself and/or others (or already have), it'd be a trip to the ER. If I was in the middle it'd be a call to the crisis line (the one that was just my old ACT team and they knew me and had an idea of what was the best thing to do).

But I know it's hypomania when I'm just running around, feeling consistently ecstatic, finding myself more impulsive with pleasure in mind (normally it's self destruction!), sleeping every nights at least 2 hours, making grand plans for the future that could be realistic for a healthy go-getter (probably not for someone on disability who gets shoved into a hospital involuntarily almost every year). It's obvious mania for me when I do a lot more dissociation and am completely disorganized. Self-care goes out the window, sleep is more erratic where I stay up 3 days straight and crash for half a day and stay up another three days, repeat. I feel totally out of control, sometimes doing something and immediately being shocked wondering why tf I did that.

Those are basically my extremes. Sometimes it's more obvious which one my current state is closer to, but unless it is clearly hypomania or clearly full-blown mania, I don't really put it in a category. I just say I need to be careful and get help (if that's even possible).

@MuddyBoots

Thanks that helps. I'm better than I was a few days ago (no one-on-one conversations with God in my head going on), but am still way up from my baseline. Very happy, sleeping WAY less (went from 8-9 hr/night to 3 or less), but have a better filter and maybe slightly more concentration (at least I can follow the plot of a TV show now; I couldn't even follow documentaries I have watch tons of times and know by heart last week at this time).

I'd appreciate more sleep and less overspending, though to be honest, I kinda liked having convos with God. But I love having more enery, more ideas. It gets in the way of my reading though. SHYT! For every upside of hypo, there's a downside.

Well, pdoc saw me yesterday and said to come back in a week, so I guess I wasn't TOO crazy. Just a little bit. LOL.

Seek help now you see your pdoc in a week. that is good.
they must think you are in danger.
Listen to what they say, don't hold back, be as honest as possible.
((((((HUGS))))))
bizi