I have been having trouble with hallucinating in the evenings when I go to sleep at night. They have gotten better, I was hallucinating when I went to bed, if I woke up in the middle of the night, and when I woke up in the morning. Now it's only when I go to sleep at night. This has been going on since Easter Sunday. I hope yours pass soon. I think it suppose to be brought on by sleep deprivation. Since I have been having them for so long I don't know what is causing mine. Started out with sleep deprivation because of med changes. But that changed 2 months ago.

For me, mania set in after bouts of sleep deprivation. I need my sleep! I suggest talking to your doc to tell 'em ya need sleep! I'm currently changing meds and I'm not getting as much sleep as before so have had to take an extra lorazepam to get me through each night. And I'm having dreams and terrors...ick. Glad to see the sun shining today.

Best wishes.

Thanks. I have been getting more sleep and at 'normal' hours for the past week but I woke up at four this morning having gone to bed at 10:30 and boy, oh boy. I've been filling in as the receptionist at work and this morning my hallucination decided that it was a good idea to have a call center in my head. I was in bed, trying to get back to sleep when i 'answered' a call and I think I had a conversation with the voice on the other end. Or maybe that was all a hallucination too. It ended when I tried to transfer her call and realized I was actually in bed. Then it branched off to a very odd, very long paranoid fantasy about what my life will be like in a few years with my husband leaving me for another woman (I am not married). taking the kids, the house, the car and half my company. I have none of those things in reality. I'm just a university student! I had this overwhelming feeling of grief and loss because of it then my mind started racing. I don't know if I'm manic or not but I spent the first few hours of work working on a book, and coming up with a complicated plot as the character 'told' me her story. My thoughts haven't stopped racing but I've tried distracting myself with word games that ensure I focus on one thing.

Ugh, how can you go to work like that? I can't go to work like that when my mind is going in a million different directions. Do you take meds? I'm sorry I'm new here too so I haven't followed your posts. I get stuff running in my head like that like a freight train and I can't do any writing projects. I do repetitive art stuff and do paint by numbers (no van goghs though) and just color stuff when it gets that bad. I'm no doc so I can't help you out but you can't go to work like that!

I have somehow mastered the art of pretending to be ok. No meds yet. I can work through a manic state sometimes so i take advantage of that because when the depressive state comes i am useless to the word and myself. It wasn't an extreme case today so I did ok. Now I feel like I'm sinking into this disgusting inky black hole and i hope it's not depression trying to crush my spirits again. Sigh. And i find shredding paper to be very calming so I store old newspaper in my room. this one time i couldn't see my floor because i went through about two weeks of depression and shredding was a better alternative to self harming.

That's a lot to balance. I know I did the balancing act pretty ok for a few weeks at work (at several jobs) but then whenever aggression from another person I am triggered and then I shut down. Then I end up in the hospital. Typically. I have had difficults with many of the meds for many years (I like to write poems about them all cause it makes me laugh) but I'm getting better with some new combos I've been trying. Still trying and I will continue to try and not give up on them. Don't be afraid to get help if you need to. I can't say it's easy but once you have the right group on your side it gets better.

Thanks niknak. I've never really found it easy to let people in. In fact 'friend' is a term I use very loosely because the people I call my friends don't really know much about me and they most definitely don't know what goes on with me. I prefer it that way because I know them well enough to know that they will either brush it off or give me useless advice because they've 'felt down' too so they know what I'm going through. To be honest, all I really want from them is to understand that they don't understand what's going on but be willing to help me through it or learn more about my condition. The only person I really let in is my other half and I put the poor guy through hours of bipolar movies and documentary :-) He's been a lot of help but i feel so bad sometimes for taking so much from him and being mean without realizing it.
Being a part of this support group really helps because it's kinda reassuring to know you aren't alone and getting advice from someone who's in the same sinking (or speeding, lol) boat as you are is much better than someone pretending they understand when they really don't.