Hypomania and Sleep Medications

Since I was twelve years old, I did not want to sleep at a normal hour. I preferred to play chess until four in the morning and then try to get to junior high school by 6:45 AM, which was essentially a fool's errand. My lateness and torpor and intellectual and emotional absence at school were foreordained by my (not) sleeping patterns. I typically rolled into school around ten AM and then had to ask at the office what my locker number was and what my combination was.

Who can remember such details on so little sleep? Now, I read that it is a typical symptom of hypomania to find it virtually impossible to sleep until one is simply too tired to keep his eyes open any longer. (I well remember slipping off of my chair onto the floor in science class in seventh grade, because at that moment it became impossible to pretend to be awake any longer.

So, now I take Clonazepam/Clopam an hour before I think I should go to bed. An hour later, my body calls out for sleep with medicine the way others' bodies call out for sleep without medicine. I become greatful to be going to sleep instead of mortally resistant.

Now, the issue has arisen whether a person who takes so many medications should drive a car and operate heavy machinery. I my case, it was far more dangerous for me to do so without these medications than with them. Should an epileptic drive with or without taking his seizure medication? Optimally, he would not need to drive at all, but it seems to me that since the purpse of the medication is to reduce seizures, it's better to drive having taken the medicine than to drive without it. That's just my opinion. I know I'm a safer driver when I'm not actively suicidal or full of amorphous anxiety and unvented fury.