You rapidly tap your hand against your leg. Thoughts fly through your mind so quickly you have to strain to grasp onto one long enough for it to make sense. A brilliant idea suddenly strikes and you jump to your feet in excitement. You skip to the cabinet and hastily pull open drawers, tearing through their contents, searching for what it is you were looking for. It's not there. You swear it was there just earlier today but now it's no where to be found. Frustration bubbles up in you and you kick the items that are now scattered all over your living room floor. Cursing you move on to another room to look for it. Your thoughts are racing quickly again and now you can't even remember what it is you were looking for. Another idea pops in your head. Air. You think. I need fresh air. You scurry off to your bedroom and throw open your closet doors. The outfit that you are wearing simply won't work for this occasion. You change into a new, better, cuter ensemble, throw on a hat and some lipstick for the final touch. You burst outside and spin around, lifting your face to the sun. The fresh air softly kisses your skin and you sigh happily as you wander off down the road. You have no idea where it is you are going or what you plan to accomplish but right now, in this moment, you have never felt more alive.
Mania is a funny thing. Sometimes it brings with it a type of happiness that fills you up and leaves you overflowing with excitement. Other times it turns your mind into a twisted cobweb of thoughts that blend into each other, racing by too quickly for you to grasp hold. This leaves you feeling frustrated, useless, and slightly insane. No matter what you do, you can't seem to gain control of your own mind. It can be a terrifying feeling. The rest of the world seems to go too slow and you find yourself easily irritated at the smallest of things. This irritation only feeds into the racing thoughts and lack of control you are feeling. Which in turn bumps up your level of frustration. You want to scream. Or throw something. I instead normally close in on myself, digging my nails into my arms, wishing I could crawl out of my skin.
There are times when I am manic that you can tell by taking one look at me. I'm pacing around; there is a desperate need to be constantly moving. I'm babbling on about something, using my arms and hands to make gestures to emphasize the incredible passion I feel about that particular subject at the moment. Other times I'm sitting off to the side, fidgeting incessantly, mostly or completely silent. This is because I can't concentrate enough to make sense of anything to form a semi coherent sentence to add to a conversation.
Leading up to full blown mania, I usually have a decently long period of hypomania. This is the part of being bipolar that I actually enjoy. When I'm in this frame of mind, I get things done. I normally find very little need for sleep, taking a few long naps here and there rather than getting a full nights rest. This leaves me with extra time to accomplish all of the projects that I coming up with ideas for. My most creative work is usually a product of this time. I clean like crazy. And organize. Oh how I love to organize. I also tend to spend entirely too much money on completely unnecessary things. But in the moment they seem like I absolutely need them. And I have to get it now because if I don't get it now then I won't be able to finish this brilliant project that I just came up with and who knows how long I'll have this much energy and motivation to do things so it needs to happen now. That can get me into a bit of trouble.
While hypomania can be productive and actually rather enjoyable, it cannot be maintained. (Trust me I have tried.) Eventually one of two things will happen. I will either come crashing down into a period of depression or it will suddenly start escalating into full blown mania, which at that point things get messy and completely out of control. I make embarrassing choices that reflects a person that is completely different from who I am and what I believe in. I blow through crazy amounts of money. (I don't have a credit card in my name for this reason.) I act impulsively and put myself into sometimes dangerous situations. It wreaks havoc on every aspect of my life. When I come crashing down from my high, picking up the pieces of my life that I so carelessly tossed around leads to shame, guilt, and anger towards myself. Full blown mania is not fun. You may have some fun times while you are in it but when reality sets back in, it is not a fun place be at. A few days of mania has the potential to completely ruin everything that I have worked so hard these past couple of years for. That terrifies me.
Luckily I am learning how to prevent myself from getting into a full blown manic episode. Meds of course are crucial. Keeping myself in somewhat of a routine also helps. (This I'm not super fond of. I've never been one to like doing a consistent pattern of things day in and day out, but like it or not it's what's good for me so I'm doing it.) On days where my mood is kind of all over the place I will get a water instead of a drink when I'm out with friends. Having a couple drinks now and then is fine, but there are certain days where I know adding alcohol into the mix of my life would not lead to good things so I have to say no for that night. Taking notice of when the hypomania starts to sink in and talking about it with my psychiatrist and the people I trust around me helps to hold me accountable as well. If it starts to escalate and is getting to be completely out of control I know I would at that point need to be in the hospital while meds are being adjusted. That hopefully will not need to happen but I am aware that it is a possibility.
I think Carrie Fisher describes mania very well:
When I am teetering more towards the manic side and I am waiting for my med adjustment to start working I have found it helpful to surround myself with people who will not judge me but instead help me work through those frustrating few days. By staying with people I trust I am prevented from acting as impulsively as I would on my own. I have found it's good to have a few different people you can rely on because when I'm in that frame of mind I am kind of exhausting to be around. Plus I get bored very quickly so switching things up constantly keeps me from getting aggravated over the little things I would normally never care about. When my thoughts are rapidly spinning out of control I close my eyes and say to myself:
Saying that doesn't always mean I get a reprieve from the maddness of my mind (Although sometimes He does give that to me). And a lot of the time when I am saying it I am certainly not sitting still. But it reminds me who is in control. And I trust that my God will make everything work out just the way it should be. I don't always get an immediate answer, and sometimes what I get is not what I was expecting. But I have found that He can take even the messiest of situations and turn it into something good. So no matter how fast my world may be spinning I will cling to Him because He is the only one with the power to truly slow it down.
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