Notes from a Manic Episode
Read until the end for a recommendation I promise is not in any way influenced by my mania
Good morning. I am in the middle of a manic episode. More specifically a hypomanic episode. It began on Tuesday, and going on the experience of my previous (and until this week, only) hypomanic episode, it’ll probably begin to wane by about Saturday or Sunday, hopefully sooner.
Just to get this out of the way - mania and hypomania, while sharing symptoms are distinctly different. Hypomania, what I’m experiencing currently, is marked by things like impulsive behavior, inability to sleep, excessive exercising, profligate spending of money, insatiable sex drive. Good ‘ol mania may include any or all of those symptoms, but can also contain delusions, paranoia, and a total break from reality. So at least I’ve got that going for me.
I think chronic sufferers of this illness are very good at sensing what the onset feels like, and could describe to you in plain terms how they know one is coming and what they do to prepare for it. Me, on the other hand, I’m just a hypomania baby—I had one episode almost three years ago, and it’s been pretty smooth sailing ever since—so it took until yesterday at about 7PM for me to reflect on the behavior I was exhibiting and realize that it was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, mania. Let me count the ways
The first thing is that it causes my physical stamina to increase precipitously. Like I normally try to run a mile three times a week, and I did two and a half miles easily on Tuesday.
The second, and most obvious clue was when I looked at the clock late Tuesday night, and saw that it was 5:30 AM, and I hadn’t slept. I had actually spent about 2 hours playing along with the ZZ Top song “Just Got Paid” on my guitar, because mania or not the riff in that song is to me what “Sweet Child O’ Mine” is to so many others.
Yesterday I made a small, incongruous decision to drive two hours to deal with one small issue (which took about 45 minutes) and then drive back. I think if I were in a better headspace I might have either asked someone closer to help or simply waited until I had more reason to be there. But, ya know, impulsivity.
Strangely the thing that really clinched it for me was just incredibly and effusive over emotion to media I normally consume. On my drive home yesterday, I was listening to a podcast called (and I need you to excuse the name of this podcast because it’s funny and I didn’t name it, so you can’t get mad at me) Bigsofttitty.png, and I found myself belly laughing. Guffawing until there were tears in my eyes. BSTPNG is very funny and I never miss an episode, but I’m not usually a laugh out loud guy. But the emotions were just all over the place.
Later in the car rideI put on Liquid Swords by the GZA and when we got to the song “4th Chamber,” I was screaming the lyrics in my car with the windows down. I just kept rewinding RZA’s verse and shouting it over and over and over. I consider myself an enthusiastic music lover, but I don’t feel like I’ve ever been that enthusiastic about anything.
The moment it really kicked in was about 6 PM when I decided to watch a video of Kid Koala cutting and scratching over Henry Mancini/Audrey Hepburn’s “Moon River.” I mean, it’s an insane display of virtuosity and talent, and the song itself is a classic. But when I tell you I was sobbing, I don’t think that word conveys the effusiveness with which I was crying over this video. You should watch it because it’s incredible, but I’d be a little surprised if it aroused the same emotion in you.
I held it together until he was dropping needs in random spots on the record to create instrumental harmonies. My god it’s so inventive and so beautiful.
Last night was bad. It elevated from just plain old sadness to a full blown panic attack and I ended up augmenting my mania with some klonopin (at the behest of my docror), which felt for the first hour or two like having a panic attack while on muscle relaxers. I was miserable but also in some liminal space between awareness and unawareness. 2.5 out of 10. The 2.5 is because it was funny enough to include in this article.
It’s hard to explain what hypomania looks like because it’s this roiling, discombobulating feeling that makes me simultaneously want to climb out of my skin and to tell everyone not to worry. It’s five contradictory emotions simultaneously. It’s happiness and sadness and anticipation and fear and arousal and exhaustion and it all stretches out endlessly over everything in my life, basically paralyzing me. I’ve had to fight the worst impulses to make confrontational calls to people I’m upset with, and I’ve had to force myself to eat. Currently, I’m forcing myself to write. If I don’t, the sheer weight of experiencing all these emotions simultaneously will crush me.
Still, as much as I am currently not enjoying my manic episode, I am double extra super not enjoying my anticipation of when this ends. Mania isn’t perfectly understood, but there’s za growing belief that serotonin may be a “manic switch,” and once my body exhausts its supply, I will tumble into a crippling depression while my body adjusts. I remember so clearly, the last time this happened stuffing way too much adderall in my face trying to keep the mood up, but in the end, I gave into the sadness which lasted months. I can only hope that anticipation of whatever comes next will allow me to prepare for the worst.
Thanks for reading. If any of this didn’t make sense you can’t blame me I’m manic right now.
OK, before I give you this recommendation I need you to hear me out. I loved Jennifer Lopez’ Netflix battle mech movie Atlas. And since I know you’re wondering, I watched it last week well before the manic episode started. I was delighted from start to finish. Not because it was good necessarily, but because they managed to cram so many sci-fi and action movie cliches into this flick. If you’ve ever seen Hot Fuzz. A movie that borrows everything from mise en scène to dialogue from action movies as both homage and sendup, Atlas does nearly the same thing, but with complete earnestness, and against all odds, it won me over. If you need two hours to turn your brain off, you can’t go wrong with this movie.
The Jambox this week is music to try and calm me down. Maybe it’ll calm you down too. Also just a reminder I have been reading HG Wells’ War of the Worlds on my twitch. It’s a banger. twitch.tv/tuffshed. Thanks for hanging, I’ll see yall next week.
I've been through something similar but on a way-way-way less huge scale. It can be scary when your brain does its own thing and I can only imagine what it'd be like when it is at the scale you have described.
I hope you have good support and can ride this out. Please just take care of yourself, mate. You are a good one.
I can relate to this post a lot more than I thought I’d be comfortable with. I’d say I’m fairly high functioning then I read something like this and a lot of blocks slide into place.