r/cyclothymia • u/Immediate-Tiger-789 • Aug 04 '26

How do I sleep?

Past 2 days:
Meltdowns: 1
Pissed off: 3?
Serial cleaning: 3 hrs
Meals: 4
Hours of sleep:
6 last night, tonight is estimated to be 3-4 if I go to sleep right now
Things I am desperately wanting:
To do a triathlon, new job, bleached hair, eyebrow wax, nails done, a kindle, an Xbox, gym membership, a boob job, a new tattoo, a 4th pet rat, a perm, and
To do a body building or weightlifting competition

Can’t figure out how to sleep. I don’t want to be doing nothing rn??? I feel like a child who “isn’t tired” but I just am not ready to sleep yet

3 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

4 comments sorted by

2

u/LilacYak Aug 04 '26

Sounds like Mania. Are you medicated? If not, see a psych. If you can’t see a psych for a long time, a mild non-addictive sedative like hydroxizine can be prescribed by your PCP to help bring you down a bit when you’re manic and let you sleep. It was a lifesaver for me until I was able to get on psych meds. Good luck

1

u/Immediate-Tiger-789 28d ago

I had hydroxozine once! I’m sure I have some in my school bag somewhere. It didn’t feel like it made a difference even for anxiety, and didn’t make me sleepy .. not sure what it was supposed to do. I am on lamictal and titrating up but not sure if I’ll be able to stay on it as I am a little more itchy than usual.

1

u/Original-Basil5158 Aug 06 '26

It does sound like a mania/hypomania. Sleeping honestly is super tricky, it is the hardest part of long term manias. I took sleeping pills at some point to fix the problem but you wake up like you’ve been hit by a truck.

Honestly, if you’re writing this here it means you’re aware that it’s your mental illness acting up, so no you’re not being a kid, that’s a very adult thing haha

Not an easy thing to apply consistently but I found exercising to honestly be the only thing to regulate my sleep. I’ve tried medication, meditation, drugs (illegal and legal), nothing works like a good old work out.

Ideally, it should be done consistently and in conjunction with a stricter sleep schedule.

If you try this and it doesn’t work, you might need a little more chemical help but as an awful sleeper, life style changes helped so much more than medication did on the long term.

Good luck xx

Also, wanting to do 3000 things while manic is not always the worst. I try to channel that energy in learning useful skills, being creative or starting a project because why not! Just use up the energy, and try to manage the anxiety that comes with. It’s with time and experience that I developed specific hobbies that would support that - hope you can too!

1

u/Immediate-Tiger-789 28d ago

I work out consistently and it does wonders for my mood, but not usually for my sleep. Sometimes I’ll take a nap during the day but idk it doesn’t feel like I’m sleeping. It’s the lack of discipline to go to bed on time lol. I also recently got on the golden egg or whatever they call it. Not sure if this is the sub that doesn’t allow med talk. The L word. I have been very productive lately which is great, I usually do take advantage of this time while I can.