What do you mean when you say "manic episode"?

[Walilamdzi]

I just think it's quite a subjective term and wonder what each person's experience of mania is. Is anyone willing to elaborate?

 

[Raminiki]

I experience mania. I'll bullet the symptoms.

. Insomnia. I'll go for days and weeks of not sleeping much at all. A few weeks in I start to microsleep. I'm awake but lose consciousness for moments and I'm on autopilot. I regain consciousness having said or done things I can't remember.

. Energy. I have boundless energy and operate at 200% my usual capacity. I have to be doing things constantly. I run everywhere. I laugh at everything. I'm exceptionally animated. I have boundless confidence. I pun like a pro. I'm happy in the extreme.

. Creativity. Suddenly I'm inspired all the time. My ability to draw becomes easy when I usually struggle. I write nonstop. It's a constant stream of thoughts leading one into another. My dreams become intense. I have waking dreams and spiritual experiences.

. Grandiose delusions. I feel like I'm divine. Like I've connected with omniconsciousness and it flows through me, and I channel it. I speak in tongues. I have lucid dreams and act them out. I feel like the universe bends around my will and everything that occurs is a sign.

. Goalsetting. I have urgent purpose and must do certain things. Perform personal rituals. Write out and document everything that comes to mind - and my mind is a constant stream of wondrous realisations.

. Music. I have to be listening to music constantly and at maximum volume. I use it to drown out the thoughtstream. To try and block out the feeling of omniconsciousness. I connect with every song and dance to them.

. Stereotypy. I start pacing anticlockwise circles to use up the boundless energy. I can't rest. I must constantly turn circles.

. Trances. In line with the spiritual experiences and waking dreams, I go into trances or have intense and engrossing visions of fantastical nature. They are overwhelmingly beautiful, and normal experience looks monotone and grey in comparison. I can be living a duality of my normal self and a sort of bilocated spirit self in a different universe, and experiencing both at once. I'm living in a fantasy world. My dreams are my reality.

. No appetite. I lose all desire for food and sometimes feel nauseous or vomit. Despite expending enormous amounts of energy, I don't need to replace it. My weight drops alarmingly. My health suffers. My body is exhausted but my mind keeps going at full speed, dragging the body along with it.

. Compulsions. I have to be wary of wanting to spend lots of money or give it away charitably.

When I come down off one of these manias, and they can last months, I'm confused and shattered by my experiences and have to recover. I then always, always plunge into an extreme depression that's ten times worse than my usual chronic depression. I feel like I touched the heavens and have been taken away from it all and banished from ever being that happy again.

Mania is weird and wonderful and different for everyone that goes through it. I haven't even got an absolutely confirmed diagnosis because I'm good at controlling my symptoms to some extent, and channel them into creative work. I seem eccentric and enthusiastic, but I hide the spiritual side of it because I know people who've never experienced that will judge it lunacy. When I'm depressed I call it lunacy. But I miss it. It's pure bliss.

 

[AnxietyAttack44]

I experience mania. I'll bullet the symptoms.

. Insomnia. I'll go for days and weeks of not sleeping much at all. A few weeks in I start to microsleep. I'm awake but lose consciousness for moments and I'm on autopilot. I regain consciousness having said or done things I can't remember.

. Energy. I have boundless energy and operate at 200% my usual capacity. I have to be doing things constantly. I run everywhere. I laugh at everything. I'm exceptionally animated. I have boundless confidence. I pun like a pro. I'm happy in the extreme.

. Creativity. Suddenly I'm inspired all the time. My ability to draw becomes easy when I usually struggle. I write nonstop. It's a constant stream of thoughts leading one into another. My dreams become intense. I have waking dreams and spiritual experiences.

. Grandiose delusions. I feel like I'm divine. Like I've connected with omniconsciousness and it flows through me, and I channel it. I speak in tongues. I have lucid dreams and act them out. I feel like the universe bends around my will and everything that occurs is a sign.

. Goalsetting. I have urgent purpose and must do certain things. Perform personal rituals. Write out and document everything that comes to mind - and my mind is a constant stream of wondrous realisations.

. Music. I have to be listening to music constantly and at maximum volume. I use it to drown out the thoughtstream. To try and block out the feeling of omniconsciousness. I connect with every song and dance to them.

. Stereotypy. I start pacing anticlockwise circles to use up the boundless energy. I can't rest. I must constantly turn circles.

. Trances. In line with the spiritual experiences and waking dreams, I go into trances or have intense and engrossing visions of fantastical nature. They are overwhelmingly beautiful, and normal experience looks monotone and grey in comparison. I can be living a duality of my normal self and a sort of bilocated spirit self in a different universe, and experiencing both at once. I'm living in a fantasy world. My dreams are my reality.

. No appetite. I lose all desire for food and sometimes feel nauseous or vomit. Despite expending enormous amounts of energy, I don't need to replace it. My weight drops alarmingly. My health suffers. My body is exhausted bit my mind keeps going at full speed, dragging the body along with it.

. Compulsions. I have to be wary of wanting to spend lots of money or give it away charitably.

When I come down off one of these manias, and they can last months, I'm confused and shattered by my experiences and have to recover. I then always, always plunge into an extreme depression that's ten times worse than my usual chronic depression. I feel like I touched the heavens and have been taken away from it all and banished from ever being that happy again.

Mania is weird and wonderful and different for everyone that goes through it. I haven't even got an absolutely confirmed diagnosis because I'm good at controlling my symptoms to some extent, and channel them into creative work. I seem eccentric and enthusiastic, but I hide the spiritual side of it because I know people who've never experienced that will judge it lunacy. When I'm depressed I call it lunacy. But I miss it. It's pure bliss.

So thats what is happening to me. Thank you. I was confused as hell wondering wtf is wrong with me. Now i know. Thanks

 

[Walilamdzi]

I experience mania. I'll bullet the symptoms.

. Insomnia. I'll go for days and weeks of not sleeping much at all. A few weeks in I start to microsleep. I'm awake but lose consciousness for moments and I'm on autopilot. I regain consciousness having said or done things I can't remember.

. Energy. I have boundless energy and operate at 200% my usual capacity. I have to be doing things constantly. I run everywhere. I laugh at everything. I'm exceptionally animated. I have boundless confidence. I pun like a pro. I'm happy in the extreme.

. Creativity. Suddenly I'm inspired all the time. My ability to draw becomes easy when I usually struggle. I write nonstop. It's a constant stream of thoughts leading one into another. My dreams become intense. I have waking dreams and spiritual experiences.

. Grandiose delusions. I feel like I'm divine. Like I've connected with omniconsciousness and it flows through me, and I channel it. I speak in tongues. I have lucid dreams and act them out. I feel like the universe bends around my will and everything that occurs is a sign.

. Goalsetting. I have urgent purpose and must do certain things. Perform personal rituals. Write out and document everything that comes to mind - and my mind is a constant stream of wondrous realisations.

. Music. I have to be listening to music constantly and at maximum volume. I use it to drown out the thoughtstream. To try and block out the feeling of omniconsciousness. I connect with every song and dance to them.

. Stereotypy. I start pacing anticlockwise circles to use up the boundless energy. I can't rest. I must constantly turn circles.

. Trances. In line with the spiritual experiences and waking dreams, I go into trances or have intense and engrossing visions of fantastical nature. They are overwhelmingly beautiful, and normal experience looks monotone and grey in comparison. I can be living a duality of my normal self and a sort of bilocated spirit self in a different universe, and experiencing both at once. I'm living in a fantasy world. My dreams are my reality.

. No appetite. I lose all desire for food and sometimes feel nauseous or vomit. Despite expending enormous amounts of energy, I don't need to replace it. My weight drops alarmingly. My health suffers. My body is exhausted but my mind keeps going at full speed, dragging the body along with it.

. Compulsions. I have to be wary of wanting to spend lots of money or give it away charitably.

When I come down off one of these manias, and they can last months, I'm confused and shattered by my experiences and have to recover. I then always, always plunge into an extreme depression that's ten times worse than my usual chronic depression. I feel like I touched the heavens and have been taken away from it all and banished from ever being that happy again.

Mania is weird and wonderful and different for everyone that goes through it. I haven't even got an absolutely confirmed diagnosis because I'm good at controlling my symptoms to some extent, and channel them into creative work. I seem eccentric and enthusiastic, but I hide the spiritual side of it because I know people who've never experienced that will judge it lunacy. When I'm depressed I call it lunacy. But I miss it. It's pure bliss.

Thank you for sharing!