partial lulls or shifting criteria in mania

In the last few days, I have had an experience that follows a pattern I have seen in myself a few times. I had an elevated mood, a couple of nearly sleepless nights where I still felt energized along with a number of other symptoms. There was no doubt in my mind I felt hypomanic. Looking at the DSM list, I had 7 of 8:

Mania
The DSM defines mania as a “distinct period of abnormally and persistently elevated, expansive, or irritable mood.” The episode must last at least a week. The mood must have at least three of the following symptoms:

high self-esteem
little need for sleep
increased rate of speech (talking fast)
flight of ideas
easily distracted
an increased interest in goals or activities
psychomotor agitation (pacing, hand wringing, etc.)
increased pursuit of activities with a high risk of danger

That was followed by 2 days of intense stress for personal/family reasons. I still got little sleep, but on the second of those 2 nights I was wiped out but still had stress induced insomnia. On the following day, I was a mess; a tired, cranky mess. A nap in the afternoon almost seemed to make it worse. That night, I slept a solid 7 hours straight through, which I don't often do. In the morning, I felt what I describe as a low key sulk.
So I am thinking I have burned myself out of hypomania and since it was under a week, maybe it wasn't really clinical mania at all (not that it really matters all that much what I think; I will relate all this to pdoc and she will either note an episode or not). But then I look at the definition again and realize I have been irritable and still have 4 symptoms from the list the last 3 days, but I had not really considered expansive at all. If I do, I could go back to the day I joined this site, exactly a month ago and count back a few days earlier. I have had 5 of the 8 most days since then and certainly never below 3. The times I felt like I dipped low were not very low at all and not long lasting.
So now I wonder if I have a) dropped out of what would have been hypomania had it lasted longer, b) on day 7 of an episode or c) hypomanic for over a month...

This is a "holy crap" moment for me. I am closing on 200 posts here, most about myself and my mental health. Because I value the perceived anonymity, I can't/won't point you to other forums I participate in but I don't open up about my mental health. NEVER EVER. I have also been doing it in person to family, close friends and professionals. Saying this might be considered expansive is like saying the Earth might be considered round (yeah, I know; there are some holdouts). Running around researching and discussing the diagnosis I felt unsure about is actually confirming it.

Not sleeping is the absolute worst for me. I take Klonopin .5mg if I'm not asleep by midnight.

So are you saying you had mania or hypomania? If you have bipolar ii, it would be hypo, but are you looking for a bipolar i diagnosis? I'm just confused..

Hypomania. No, I am not thinking it is type I. I still keep going through boughts of disbelieving my diagnosis. I was working the angle of "oh look, they are shorter than a week" when it hit me that I was just going with elevated and entirely ignoring expansive moods. I don't think my pdoc is ignoring that. On my first visit she made a comment about how open I was and asked a few follow up questions about it. I want to say she kind of marveled at how open I was because of course I do. I started the first post thinking I was just going to talk about irritable versus elevated and leave an opening for people to say "you don't belong here; shoo!". Then I wondered what they meant by expansive and looked it up. I might be able to squirm out of the other two because the elevated and irritable moods are often short in duration (days, but usually under a week) but this expansive mood has been going on over a month.

Ohh, I see. Yeah, I get you- I deny my diagnosis often. Mostly because I have been episode-free for a little over a year. But I guess I am just on the right meds, because that's what the right medication is supposed to do. I have had my ups & downs throughout the year, but nothing I would classify as an episode, since they aren't long-lasting.

But in my opinion, I wouldn't analyze every single emotion.. that's just me though. I say, if they aren't causing any harm to yourself or others, just roll with it. I wish I was manic! The safe kind, not the dangerous kind. (My last mania got me in the hospital- I don't want that.)

You're right I shouldn't analyze every emotion. I probably should not analyze my need to analyze everything either. Or that I just said that. Like a bird flying in ever smaller circles until it finally flies up its own asshole...