Keeping It Together: Dealing with Hypomania

What’s frightening to me is I am an “expert patient.” I successfully integrate work with restorative downtimes. I cope well, I manage stress well, and I maintain a fairly healthy lifestyle. I am very good at detecting subtle mood and behavior and energy changes, and can move fast to intercept an episode before it happens. Because of all this, I am able to maintain a single-med low-dose regimen. It’s not a perfect solution, but it does the job for me – well, almost.

This particular hypomania had slipped past the radar. Luckily my wife picked it up. Lucky for me, I was not too far gone to think the problem resided with her instead of me. A good night’s sleep and a quiet morning and I was pretty much back to normal. Sophy, my live-in reality check, confirmed it.

I always keep reminding myself that I am just one manic episode away from destroying what has taken years to build. My reputation, my business, my finances, my marriage, my daughter, my personal relationships, the works. I once lost everything due to an intoxicating hypomania that spun out of control into a raging mania. My most recent behavior served to brutally remind me it could happen again, without me even noticing it’s starting to happen. It’s a very sobering thought.

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