Hypomanic symptoms or too anxious/energy to fall asleep?

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Do you, or ever did as a child/teenager, get hypomanic symptoms (anxious, energized) specifically at night/bedtime, especially when trying to actually lay down and fall asleep?

I've talked to some parents of Aspies, as well as some adult Aspies, and it seems this is a common occurrence? Here are some possible symptoms off the top of my head:

- Racing mind at night that has lots of thoughts, which may be either positive or negative.
- Feeling the need to talk a LOT ("verbal diarrhea") near/during bedtime.
- Feeling that you may need to write down all the cool/brilliant/insightful/scary/etc. ideas in your head or else lose them since they're coming at you so quickly.
- Any "anxious energy" that impedes your ability to get to sleep at night, even regardless of how much exercise you get (although I do hear it can help with kids).

Because of this, I was diagnosed as a young teenager with bi-polar disorder...a diagnosis later taken away once I reached adulthood (and I've had a bunch of tests since then). And this symptom continues to happen with me now and impairs my ability to use my quite necessary CPAP therapy, although recently my new treatment (low dose 10mg Adderall XR) has *helped*, rather than hurt (as one would expect stimulant to increase hypomanic symptoms).

Note: Racing positive thoughts of brilliance at night are usually associated with bi-polar, while racing negative thoughts at night are usually associated with ADHD or simply GAD; and I'm not saying any of this may lead to a specific diagnosis.

When I was an Alcoholic the next day after a hard night of drinking I'd have Hypomania. All this energy man wanted to take over my body and do crazy daring stuff. Like run out into traffic or destroy property. But it was never lasted too long and would vanish, Some aspects of it I enjoyed like the Euphoric feeling.
But I defintly couldnt be like that all the time, It would eventually drive me crazy.

I do not have bipolar disorder, but I have always had subclinical mood swings associated with my AS. Often late at night before bed, I will experience a "pseudo-hypomania." I call it that because it's not true hypomania, but it is the closest thing that I have experienced to what I imagine hypomania feels like. (Bipolar disorder is my primary research interest.) I have hypersomnia, so I often have debilitating fatigue, but really late at night if I'm up, I have difficulty "switching" to sleep mode if I'm excited about something. I get racing thoughts and am really happy and talk to myself about special interests since everyone else is asleep. When I get like this, it takes a great deal of effort to settle enough and turn my brain "off" enough to actually go to sleep.

If I'm reading late at night, I do often get "racing thoughts of brilliance." (I like that term, by the way. ) Happened to me a few weeks ago. Was reading science book late at night, and something in the book got me thinking about future research proposals. I know I'm not bipolar, though. I'm an expert on the subject well enough to know this. I never have had depression (my negative moods are irritable, not sad or apathetic), and I have been on various anti-depressants (first SSRIs, currently a TCA) for OCD since age 15 (10 years ago). I've also been on a transdermal methylphenidate patch for a year to combat my chronic fatigue. If I were bipolar, I surely would have switched into mania from the meds alone by this point.

Yeah; I've used "psuedohypomania" and even "hypopsuedohypomania" before, and my psychiatrists just laughed at me

If your 21 id recommend a single beer or single glass of wine. any more than that and you might be sleeping at work.

I don't get hypomania at night but I do get hyper. It's not every night but it's probably about 35-40% of nights on average.

I just have so much energy but not necessarily racing thoughts. It's more like an ADHD hyperactivity than hypomania because even though I have so much energy I can't always think of something to do with that energy.


One time I decided I was just going to go take a jog outside at around 12:00 am and I was alone. I found that the cold temperatures helped calm me down. I couldn't sleep before the run but when I got back I could easily get to sleep because the cold temperatures zapped my energy somehow.


I'm not sure if it's the same thing though. Children often have more energy at night so I might just be getting the nighttime highs that children get even though I'm older.

Good points, and I do think it could be related - unfortunately, in this specific case, bi-polar-like symptoms of "hypomania" and ADHD-like symptoms of "hyperactivity" / "overly energized" / "anxious energy" overlap in definition. Especially ADHD: http://add.about.com/od/livingwithadhd/ ... d-ADHD.htm , which I don't think either of us have (unless you have actual attention deficit).

Changed the topic wording a little bit.

I get that often still, made much worse if something was making me anxious before going to bed. Thoughts can race so badly that I can start to hear them when drifting into the semi-conscious. This includes being very restless and being unable to keep still. Those can be as late as 4AM in the morning and I often manage it using fantasy as a coping mechanism.

I get that. But I rush past "racing thoughts at bedtime" into "staying up all night" many nights.
When I was a kid a psychologist said "You get manicdepressive when you stay awake all night.. So.. uhh.. You should not do that" and the reason I had insomnia in the first place I know now was hypomania
I'm probably bipolar, but I won't go and get a proper diagnosis until if I need to treat the hypomania as medication for the depression(s) did nothing.
But maybe a bit of hypomania is common in aspies? As everyone that answered the poll up till now said "yes"?

I have always had this and never knew that anyone else didn't have it, although I guess after several years of watching significant others sleeping I should have caught on. We just call it insomnia though, my father also has it. I wouldn't categorize my thoughts as brilliant or necessarily worrisome, just their presence continually was an annoyance. Now have been treated for anxiety and depression and insomnia, and this seems to be "working". I do not ponder things late into the night or worry that I will be unable to go to sleep. hooray!

I answered no, as I have never been an energetic person. But then I read the post, and yes, I do have a tendency to lie awake needing to quiet my mind, especially if I try to do any creative work near bedtime - I start getting ideas racing through my mind that I want to capture, write down, etc. even though I'm too physically tired to actually do so. But I'm dealing with fibromyalgia as well, which saps my physical energy, so that's part of why I don't actually get up and do things.

Also whenever I have to deal with unusual situations or social events, money worries, etc. Anything really, I tend to go over things before sleep, I'll be exhausted, can't keep my eyes open, so I go to bed, but as soon as my head hits the pillow my mind gets really busy. Sigh.

Sorry I screwed up your statistics. I should have learned by now to read the post before answering a poll.

Aw, I went to edit my post and didn't know there was a time-limit. Anyway, just wanted to add (after I was like "ooooh shiiiit that could be read wrong") that I didn't realize I'm probably bipolar just based on a bit of insomnia alone, but that was kind of the topic at hand.

I think one of the things that keep me up after bedtime, unrelated to manic times, is that if I'm not done thinking something through it's not that easy to just let it go, which is often fine with me though.

BlueAbyss, I feel you on the "no physical energy, lots of mental energy"-thing

Yes, as a young child. My mom says I used to run in circles around the room until I finally grew tired enough to fall asleep.

Nowadays, I have little trouble falling asleep once I'm in bed. It's switching tasks to get to bed in the first place that's tough. I do tend toward early-awakening type insomnia, thanks to repetitive nightmares, but I can deal with that and I usually don't lose more than a couple hours of sleep over it, which a nap later in the day makes up for easily.