Hypomania?

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I've been feeling very high for the past few days. I'm not diagnosed with bipolar but I had a hypomanic episode when I was 15. I've been on SSRIs and they didn't trigger anything, so I assumed I didn't have it. I'm still currently taking SSRIs for depression, which I have nearly all the time (depression, that is). Lately though, I've not been needing to eat or sleep much and my thoughts are racing. I feel much more outgoing and my sex drive has really increased. I've been talking really quickly like I'm on speed and that's honestly how I feel. I've been having visual hallucinations too and tonight it was like a full-blown trip. I've not slept at all because my heart was racing and I kept seeing geometric patterns everywhere.

WTF?!

Now that I've stopped hallucinating, I still feel quite high.

I haven't taken any drugs (apart from alcohol and caffeine) - honestly!

I used to take trippy drugs, but I haven't in about 2 years or so.

I don't know what's going on.

call your doctor. sounds like you hit the nail on the head as far as what's going on. now get help.

I've got to go work in a couple of hours.

I'll call the doctor and see if I can get an appointment after work.

What you should do is present to psych emergency. That is scary. What is scarier is having uncontrolled behaviour and the potential consequences. So take someone level-headed with you and go IMMEDIATELY.

I feel more or less normal now.

Don't know what came over me.

I'll definitely go if it happens again.

Be aware that, if it's hypomania escalating, you may lose the current insight that you have into your behaviour. That's what happens to me anyway. I just feel super-duper confident, like I can handle anything, and other people are a bit slow. Ask someone you trust to keep an eye on you, just in case. The worst that can happen is that they turn you away because you're not hypomanic after all.

Also, depression usually comes after the crash of hypomania so be prepared for that too.

Anyway you sound fairly insightful so maybe your first plan of going to the doctor is the best.

If you're hallucinating, which is a psychotic symptom, by definition, you cannot be hypomanic. Psychosis only occurs during full-blown mania, not hypomania.

They're not proper hallucinations. If you've ever taken acid or mescaline they're more like visual distortions (flashes of light, bleeding colours) and closed-eye images. What I saw last night was identical, really.

I think the 'hallucinations' were more like HPPD. It doesn't normally bother me.

The sense of being dangerously euphoric and energetic is what worried me because it's so out of the ordinary for me.

Could it have been a flashback?

The visuals, yeah.

I've never had a flashback with that kind of euphoria, though.

Still no appetite or desire to sleep, but I at least feel calmer now.

I will force myself to eat something. I had a cereal bar on Sunday morning and haven't eaten anything since then (haven't wanted to - which is VERY odd for me).

Go to the doctor. Even if you don't feel like you need to, trust me, please go anyway. What you have written here is more than enough to warrant an immediate visit.

I feel really awesome right now, but you're right. I don't feel out of control, but it could go that way.

It can go out of control and you'll never even realize it, you just think you feel really awesome. Once you lose your insight you have no idea. And you get involved in a lot of bad stuff because you just think it's all great. And then once you're normal again you need to deal with the consequences.

Please go to the doctor. This could end badly.

Think about it this way. The fact that you feel really awesome right now is the reason you need to go to a doctor. If you need to, just think of it is a precautionary measure. It can't hurt you to go, but it can hurt you a lot not to go. If you are bipolar and you are on SSRI's that is bad, really bad, because they can cause permanent damage/make you permanently worse.

I have now well and truly crashed.