Aspects of mania are praised by our culture. The productivity and creativity of mania can make people better at their jobs. For me, I would do 100 hour weeks working on my YouTube channel, uploading full length videos 2-3 times a week. This was seen as a positive thing and helped my career. Mania can make bipolar people so exciting and impulsive and flirtatious and humorous which many non-bipolar people experience as a fun person. This was so hard for me, because it seemed like people preferred the manic version of me. Mania can also cause bipolar people to be more emotionally vulnerable and affirming which leads to deeper conversations and closer relationships. When I was manic, I found that strangers would open up to me about intimate details of their lives and something in my face or how I listened created that trust and vulnerability. I felt so much closer to God when I was manic, because I would read my Bible and pray and sing to God for hours at a time. That connection and vulnerability was a manic symptom called hyper-spirituality, but because I grew up Christian I just thought I was having these amazing spiritual experiences. The biggest thing though was the feeling of happiness and elation. I was the happiest person I’d ever met and life felt amazing when I was manic. It felt like I was seeing life things through a kaleidoscope of diamonds. This is why so many bipolar people go off their medications, because there is a chemical addiction to the mania. After existing that way for years, it was so difficult accepting that who I was while manic caused me permanent brain damage and was harmful to me. Depression I could immediately identify as a sickness, but with mania it was so different. As mania builds with more sleep deprivation it becomes more dangerous and can lead into anger, losing a job or impulse quitting, ruining a marriage, cutting off other relationships, selling possessions, going into debt and having wacky religious experiences. It can be terrifying and completely out of control.
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