Trouble with sleep treatment? Sleepy wakey sleepy wakey lalalala shrinklet say:

Question

I get that I'm depressed and that it would be wise to try to get up at a certain time every day (now, as to why that time can't be 1pm, I'm afraid my shrinklet can't provide a reasonable judgment. But that aside, say it's 9am.) So wake wake wake at nine nine nine and I feel happy again, even if I have to get my sleep on like a fuzzy blanket at around 9 or 10pm. And this becomes my waking time, and since I can't always go to bed at 10, when I start at midnight I'll get a full 8-9 hours, no more, and be cured.

All good. However:

What if I'm manic and STILL need to wake up the same time every day? Won't that just make my mania worse? Ya can't just clock out when you're manic... and sometimes you need a marathon sleep to put a rest, so to speak, of all that stuff.

Sorry for the muddledom, humor aside, this is being written by a mildly to moderately depressed person. Was worse before. Sleeping in is GOOD.

Answer 1

Your psychiatrist is telling you that you do better when you have a regular sleeping schedule.  Our sleep cycle is tied to a certain ryhthm and is related to the light and dark outside.  If midnight to 9 works, that is an excellent time frame (unless you have to work earlier and in that case you would need to move back the time you fall asleep).

You should be taking a mood stabilizer if you are having manic episodes (manic/depression = bipolar), even if the sleep pattern has relieved some of the depression.  

No matter how much you sleep, you never truly make up for NOT sleeping, so no, sleeping in only puts you back into the depression, it does not "make up" for the manic times, so it actually is making the bi-polar WORSE.