As someone misdiagnosed with bipolar 2 at the outset (like 90% of us) I am getting pretty tired of the word mania.
This is yet another poorly defined catch-all which causes more problems than it solves. ‘Caused mania in underlying bla bla’, with the bla bla being the point.
So despite bp2 having been all but dismissed, anger is still mania? Excitement is mania. Positivity? Energy? Dreams for the future? Definitely mania; this guy wasn’t exhibiting those before.
Or maybe it’s a treatment. Maybe he’s better?
Maybe he was always like this and somehow you forgot. Jetting all over the world, setting up companies, doing ironman. That’s some pretty manic stuff.
But yeah. This was drugs. So… mania? That would imply ‘triggered a manic episode in underlying yadda yadda’. But in this case, what happened was ‘drugs made him high for 4 days’ and the reason was ‘the drugs treated his underlying adhd’, which was the whole point.
A doctor would have been like ‘mania stop the drugs’. But the mania was a clinical effect because of my fucked up synapses. And this is why we need clinical trials!
Anyway how about at the start or finish of a race? Mania? On your wedding day or when about to propose? During a killer sales pitch. The all-blacks getting fired up for a game. Having a fucking baby?
My point is that ‘mania’ is a brain state which I have utilised effectively throughout my life. It has defined my life. Mania and depression. Sounds bipolar, but I think It was adhd pulling me out, asd latching on, and then major periods of burnout. My point is it’s nothing new.
And at the outset it was me on drugs. How do I know this? Lots of experience. Aripiprazole was like coming up from a speedy pill, spread out over 4 days, and that makes sense when you look at how it interacts with the brain.
So can we stop with the mania bullshit? I have legitimate emotions and if you start dismissing them as mania then I have to fight for them, and get exasperated, and you see more mania, and it goes nowhere good. It’s also disrespectful.
I was on drugs, guys. Go try some ecstasy. You’ll understand.
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