To be honest it sounds like you may be a bit Bipolar. This is a typical manic episode for me. I go along and don't really have depression and don't really have highs. Instead of mountains and valleys I have more like speed bumps and dips. But the staying awake it the bigger issue to me. So what if I tear up at a commercial every 6-8 months, that's about the extense of my depression. I have ended up in the hospital a few times just to get some meds and get my schedule back on track. One time I took some medicine that knocked me out and I slept for about 20 hours woke up and felt like cleaning house for a couple fo days. The Doc let me go home as soon as I woke up the next day and she saw my schedule was back on track.
Definantly talk to your Doc about possible issues and get some meds you can take when you need to get to sleep.
One thing I do is Autogenic Relaxation and Visualization. You can get tapes or cd's of relaxation stuff at places like Hastings and Brace books. I like "peaceful ocean surf", it has birds, boats, ships, foghorns, etc...and I just melt away when I put it into the cd player. Another one is Pachabel's Canon over the sound of ocean waves. It just pulses at the same rate as a relaxed heart and I find myself drifting off rather quickly.
When I am trying to relax I listen to a tape that guides me through a set relaxation, starts at my feet and moves up, I am often asleep before I get to my hips. I eventually end up at relaxing my facial muscles, then I breathe deep a few times and then go up, or down, some stairs to a beautiful beach, no bugs, no sunburns, no annoying things at all, just the breeze on my face, the swaying trees, the waves lapping at the sand, the sound of the water hitting the sand, etc...then I relax more, etc...this is a typical relaxation exercise on a cd or tape. It relaxes the muscles deeply and your brain picks up on the signals and starts shutting down. Some people don't find water sounds relaxing and like the sound of a Spring rain or thunder, there are many to choose from.
I can also turn on the radio just where I can't make out what they are saying and I try to listen. I am usually asleep withing a minute or two and often don't even hear the end of the song I turned on.