So what exactly is mania? I’ve jetted all over the world, set up companies, hoo rah signed up for ironman races, bombed tree runs, jumped out of aeroplanes… you get the idea.
I expect these could all have been categorised as mania. But I was in control, mostly, so were they? Is mania not categorised by a lack of control? Or a detachment from reality?
So I get fired up - very fired up - and tend to lead from the vanguard. People follow me and improve their life situations as a result. Biologically I definitely push myself into ‘hypomania’ all the time. My goals are very unrealistic. My motto is ‘aim high miss high’. Definitely manic for the people from my town.
Full on mania would be when you lose contact with reality and I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced that. I do however think that some degree of hypomania has been a feature in my life and will remain so. I don’t think it’s a problem; it’s just me ‘getting fired up’. It’s why I do shit instead of watch Eastenders.
The time when I do tend to edge toward hypomania is when people ignore me. I’m not sure why this is and it warrants more thought. There must be a biological reason why people with adhd and asd get so irate at being ignored. I’m guessing it’s something to do with asd monotropic thinking, impulsiveness and rsd.
Anyway the recent dosing issue was a drug pushing up dopamine and serotonin so the juices were out of whack but the wires were fine. Maybe mania is when the craziness clicks over to the wires?
I would say I nudged into hypomania, because of being ignored on the science, but I still didn’t quite get there. This was still ‘normal’ territory for me. I could feel the goal directed, pressured speech, not needing rest behaviour coming but that’s normal for me when I’m in an active phase, and I think it’s the adhd and asd playing into each other, not a form of bipolar (though I’ve not ruled it out).
I honestly don’t know. As said, mucky waters. When I went ‘fuck it’ and proposed/ built a company/ signed up for a race… biologically, on the juices front, this was hypomania. But on the electricity front I was in perfect control.
Maybe that’s the difference. In which case I don’t think I’ve ever experienced mania. I have experienced acute frustration, but that’s acute and different. I experience frustration very quickly when someone ignores me, and that was likely amplified by the recent dosing issue.
… and I still think the science is right…
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