Onika L. Dainty

I once signed up for three credit cards in a single day. When they arrived, I rushed to the mall and spent each balance in under three hours. At the time, every purchase felt like a need with purpose but it was hypomania.

Hypomania can feel seductive. It creates the illusion of power, freedom, and the “best version” of yourself. But if left unchecked, it can escalate into mania or even psychosis.

For me, hypomania often ends in manic-psychosis and hospitalization, with my care team working to bring me back to baseline. The truth is, during hypomania, I feel incredible, too incredible. My inhibitions vanish, boundaries dissolve, and everything moves at warp speed. Yet over time, I’ve learned to spot hypomanic episodes, manage symptoms, and stop them before real damage occurs.

This post shares grounded, compassionate strategies for managing hypomania with bipolar disorder and practical tools drawn from lived experience.

First Comes Awareness: Catching Hypomania Early

One of the most important skills in bipolar disorder management is recognizing hypomania symptoms early. This awareness comes from tracking your mood cycles with journals, sleep logs, or apps. Common cues include racing thoughts, decreased sleep, irritability, impulsivity, and excessive optimism.

For me, hypomania sometimes shows up as extreme fatigue rather than excess energy. My baseline is naturally high-energy, which makes early signs harder to detect. After back-to-back trips to the Caribbean and New York City, I unexpectedly crashed, sleeping for days. What looked like exhaustion was actually hypomania.

Even when you know your bipolar cycle, stress, travel, or disrupted sleep can shift how symptoms appear. That’s why reflection before, during, and after episodes is so valuable. Creating a personal “Red Zone Hypomania List”, a set of your own early warning signs that can help you and your support team recognize patterns and intervene sooner.

Grounding Practices That Gently Slow You Down

When hypomania enters your cycle, you can either ride the wave or learn to calm the waters. I used to let it sweep me away, but I’ve since discovered that grounding can slow the spiral.

Some practices that help me include:

• Sensory grounding: submerging my face in cold water, using weighted blankets, or aromatherapy.
  

• Movement and breath: gentle yoga, box breathing, belly breathing, or guided body scans.
  

• Stillness rituals: light therapy, meditation music, or intentional solitude that often leads to restorative sleep.
  

These tools may not erase hypomania, but they create space for rest and regulation.

Structuring Your Day to Reduce Overstimulation

Hypomania often thrives on overstimulation. Building predictable structure and routines can make a significant difference.

• Keep a consistent sleep schedule, even when you feel energized.

• Schedule downtime during busy events like weddings or conferences.
  

• Limit caffeine, reduce screen time, and avoid noisy environments before bed.
  

Structure, routine, and healthy habits are essential to maintaining emotional stability when managing bipolar disorder.

Knowing When and How to Reach Out

Even with the best coping strategies, there are times you need support. Having a trusted network including family, friends, peers, or professionals can be life-saving.

My father often spots pressured speech before I do. My Grama Judie, who helps manage my finances, notices when I hyper-spend. They give me space to self-correct, but step in if needed, following my crisis plan and communicating with my psychiatrist.

Over the years, I’ve built a bipolar crisis plan with questions my support team feels comfortable asking me, such as:

• “When was the last time you slept?”

• “Have you been taking your medication?”
  

These may sound invasive, but with trust, they become vital tools for early intervention.

Protecting Yourself from Hypomanic Impulses

Impulsivity is one of the most challenging parts of bipolar disorder. Protecting yourself means creating safeguards before hypomania hits.

Some strategies I use:

• Safe spending rules: delay big purchases, freeze access to credit, or hand over cards to someone I trust.

• Pause big decisions: whether about relationships, travel, or quitting a job, I place them on a 72-hour hold.
  

• Create a “pause kit”: grounding tools and notes from my baseline self.
  

• The buddy system: an accountability partner who isn’t afraid to tell me the truth.
  

These systems reduce the damage impulsivity can cause and keep me aligned with my long-term healing.

Final Thoughts: You Are Not the Choices You Make in Hypomania

Hypomanic impulses will come, but they don’t define you. Some are minor, others life-altering, yet none erase your worth. Hypomania is a symptom of bipolar disorder, not your identity.

During episodes, energy, creativity, and passion accelerate. It can feel thrilling, but also unstable. Rather than fearing hypomania, I’ve learned to treat it as a signal, an invitation to slow down, set boundaries, and lean on the practices that protect my wellness.

Guilt and shame have no place here. What matters is building awareness, showing yourself compassion, and learning to navigate the highs with wisdom and care.

To my readers: What helps you recognize when hypomania is approaching? What boundaries keep you grounded when the wave begins to rise?

Life Lesson #15

“Be in your skin and fall in love with the feeling.” — Onika L. Dainty

Learning to Live in My Skin

It took me nearly 42 years to embrace this lesson—and I’m still learning. Self-love and body acceptance don’t come easily when you’ve wrestled with body image issues most of your life. For over two decades, I’ve dealt with weight gain as a side effect of mood stabilizers and antipsychotic medication prescribed to manage Bipolar disorder. Even before my diagnosis, my self-esteem was fragile. I wore a mask of confidence—intelligent, funny, charismatic, and beautiful—but underneath, I was struggling.

From childhood, food became my battleground. At first, I starved myself, skipping meals for days at a time until my grade six teacher reported it to my mother. As a nurse, she adjusted her night shifts to watch me eat. But that surveillance pushed me into binging and purging, giving me a false sense of control while my mind unraveled.

Trauma, Diagnosis, and Body Image

By my teens, depression and anxiety consumed me. At 14, a brutal assault deepened my mental chaos and reinforced my eating disorder as a form of punishment. My body felt like both the scene of the crime and the enemy. Into my twenties and early thirties, those patterns stayed with me, compounded when I was diagnosed with Bipolar I disorder at 24. Medication stabilized my mind but made me feel trapped in a body I no longer recognized.

It wasn’t until homelessness, repeated hospitalizations, and addiction forced me into long-term care that I realized how deeply connected my body image and mental health had always been. My psychotherapist helped me see that sexual trauma often distorts one’s relationship with the body—leading to cycles of self-punishment that only break with forgiveness, compassion, and healing.

Writing an Apology to My Body

After a pivotal therapy session, I sat down and wrote an apology letter to my body. I apologized for starving it, for purging, for smoking marijuana until my lips and fingers bore the scars, for binging as a side effect of medication. I promised to let go of shame and guilt and instead honour my body with care, nourishment, and respect.

That was the turning point.

Redefining Self-Love and Acceptance

Nearly a decade later, I’ve kept that promise. I haven’t binged, purged, or starved myself. I’ve been sober for almost two years. I eat to nourish, not punish, and I’ve incorporated fitness into my life—not as penance, but as a way to feel strong and alive.

Yes, my weight still fluctuates. But instead of spiralling into self-loathing, I now meet those moments with grace, self-compassion, and resilience. I remind myself: I only get one body in this lifetime, and it deserves love in every season.

My body has survived trauma, illness, and recovery. It carries my creativity, my laughter, and my strength. And no matter its shape or size, it is mine. Today, I celebrate it—not as a project to be perfected, but as a partner in my healing journey.

Final Thought

Being in my skin and falling in love with the feeling isn’t about flawless self-confidence. It’s about daily forgiveness, compassion, and choosing to honour the body I once punished.

Self-love is not a destination—it’s a practice. And every day I continue this practice, I reclaim more of myself.

To my readers: How do you practice self-love when your body doesn’t look or feel the way you want it to?

When Feeling Great Isn’t Always Good

I used to love the early stages of hypomania—the creativity, the confidence, the endless energy. It felt like I had finally stepped into the best version of myself. Hypomania can be intoxicating, even euphoric, but it never lasts. It always slips into something darker, sometimes ending in hospitalization.

For those of us living with bipolar disorder, hypomania feels like a gift but is often a warning sign. While others may feel energized because of real-life events—a new job, a big achievement—hypomania can appear without reason. That unpredictability makes it difficult to recognize until it’s already reshaping your world.

This blog explores what hypomania really is, how to recognize its signs, and why understanding it is essential for mental health stability and self-compassion.

A Closer Look: What Is Hypomania?

Hypomania is a milder form of mania. It involves an elevated, expansive, or irritable mood lasting at least four days, often with increased activity or energy. Unlike full mania, hypomania doesn’t cause severe impairment, psychosis, or always require hospitalization.

Common Symptoms

• Elevated mood or irritability
  

• Reduced need for sleep
  

• Racing thoughts and pressured speech
  

• Increased energy and goal-driven activity
  

• Impulsivity and poor judgment
  

• Inflated self-esteem or grandiose thinking
  

Hypomania in Bipolar I vs. Bipolar II

• Bipolar I: Hypomania may precede more severe manic episodes, often with psychosis and significant impairment.
  

• Bipolar II: Hypomania involves similar symptoms but without psychosis or hospitalization. It can still disrupt judgment, relationships, and wellness.
  

Though less severe than mania, hypomania often blurs the line between “productive energy” and dangerous instability.

The Allure and the Risks of Hypomanic States

Hypomania often begins with heightened creativity, motivation, and excitement. You may wake with energy after little sleep, throw yourself into projects, or feel “superhuman.” But the shadow side quickly follows: risky choices, impulsive spending, reckless relationships, or pushing your body and mind beyond safe limits.

The crash afterward can be devastating—filled with shame, guilt, and exhaustion. I’ve learned through lived experience that these behaviours aren’t personal flaws but symptoms of a complex illness. Self-compassion is essential. I am not my illness, and neither are you.

Learning to Recognize Hypomania in Real Time

Recognizing hypomania early is difficult—especially when it feels good. But awareness is key to prevention.

Strategies That Helped Me:

• Identify Triggers: Lack of sleep is a major one for me, especially during travel. Good sleep hygiene helps protect against mood shifts.
  

• Listen to Feedback: Trusted friends or mentors can often spot changes—like pressured speech or irritability—before I do. Taking their observations seriously is an act of self-care.
  

• Self-Monitoring Tools: Journaling and mood-tracking apps create a record of shifts over time. Radical honesty with yourself is essential here.
  

When I feel the euphoric pull of hypomania, I ask myself: Where will this lead? What happens after the high?
For me, the answer has often been manic psychosis, hospitalization, and months of recovery. That truth keeps me grounded.

Managing Hypomania Without Shame

Managing hypomania means staying consistent with whatever system supports your mental health:

• Medication adherence (if part of your plan)
  

• Crisis prevention planning for when episodes escalate
  

• Self-compassion over self-criticism, reframing hypomania as a signal rather than a failure
  

The goal isn’t to suppress joy, but to recognize when joy turns into dysregulation and to respond with care.

Final Thoughts: Knowing Your High Is Knowing Your Illness

Hypomania is both a gift and a warning. It signals that my brain is edging toward instability and that it’s time to return to the tools that help me heal—sleep, medication, therapy, and self-awareness.

I’ve had episodes last days, weeks, even months. I never know when they’ll arrive, but I always know when they’re here. Over time, I’ve learned that chasing the high isn’t worth sacrificing my long-term wellness.

My goal is not to avoid joy or excitement but to distinguish between authentic happiness and emotional instability. That wisdom only comes with self-awareness, compassion, and practice.

To my readers: Have you ever mistaken a mental health symptom for personal growth? What helps you tell the difference between rising and unraveling?

Lost in the Fun, Then Lost in Myself

In December 2024, I traveled to Guyana, South America—my birthplace—for the first time in 20 years. I thought I was prepared, but I wasn’t. After a 17-hour layover in Port of Spain with no sleep, I arrived overwhelmed by the beauty and energy of home. I threw myself into the excitement, skipped medications, and survived on little rest. By the second week, I was edging into mania—sleep-deprived, irritable, and far from my baseline.

After an emotional outburst toward my cousin, I realized I had lost myself in paradise. Travel can disrupt even the strongest mental health routines, but I discovered it’s possible to find balance again—using small rituals and daily habits as a compass.

Why Travel Disrupts Bipolar Stability—and Why That’s Okay

Travel with bipolar disorder often destabilizes mental health because of:

• Circadian rhythm disruption: Jet lag and time zone shifts can trigger manic or depressive symptoms.
  
  

• Travel stress: Delays, long layovers, and overstimulation add strain, especially when sleep is lost.
  
  

• Diet and hydration: Unfamiliar foods, alcohol, or unsafe water can cause fatigue, disorientation, or mood instability.
  

During my Guyana trip, the unexpected layover shattered my sleep schedule. Overstimulation made rest impossible, and what felt like “energy” was really the onset of mania.

It’s important to normalize these ebbs and flows. Experiencing symptoms abroad doesn’t always mean you’re spiralling—it may simply be your body adjusting. Instead of panicking, lean on the structure, routines, and healthy habits you rely on at home. Rest when possible, release energy in healthy ways, and give yourself grace.

Rebuilding Routine in Small, Sustainable Ways

When travel pulls you off course, reestablishing even small routines can anchor your mental health.

• Medication: Take doses consistently, at the same time each day, even across time zones.
  
  

• Meals: Eat balanced foods on a schedule that mirrors home life.
  
  

• Emotional check-ins: Journal or track moods nightly to regulate emotions.
  

If your trip is fast-paced, set reminders or alarms for structure. Create micro-rituals like unpacking in each hotel, repeating bedtime routines, or listening to calming music while getting ready. These small anchors help stabilize emotions and reduce chaos.

The Power of Predictable Habits in Unfamiliar Places

Predictability creates safety in new environments. For bipolar wellness during travel, lean on familiar habits:

• Morning rituals: Just 10 minutes of journaling, meditation, or prayer can centre your day.
  
  

• Built-in breaks: Schedule downtime between major outings to restore balance.
  
  

• Sensory grounding: Drink the same tea, stretch, or use aromatherapy oils to recreate comfort.
  

These practices remind your mind and body that stability travels with you.

Final Thoughts: My Baseline Isn’t Just a Place—It’s a Practice

I once believed stability was tied to a fixed location. Now I know my baseline is portable—it lives in my choices, my breath, my rituals. Travel doesn’t mean abandoning structure, routine, or healthy habits; it means bringing them with me.

Yes, there will be times I lose balance through no fault of my own. But guilt only deepens the spiral. Compassion, rest, and gentle course-correction are what help me return to baseline.

I no longer push through symptoms to prove myself as a “good traveler.” I pause, check in, and trust myself. Travel is a radical act of self-trust—sometimes smooth, sometimes difficult, but always worth it.

Because no matter where I am in the world, I deserve stability, healing, and adventure.

To my readers: What small habit brings you home to yourself—no matter where you are?