Owning My Mania

Posted on April 24, 2006 in Mania

When my personality begins to waft up into hypomania, my internal boundaries transform from string to smoke and blow away. For some, this leads to exhileration: life without constraints! I can say what I really think, I can eat what I want, I can sleep with whoever I want, I can run naked. For me, the experience is less salubrious. Mania is the part of the bipolar life cycle that sets me up for humiliation. I dread it. I make off color remarks in front of friends who don’t appreciate such remarks, for example. I might lose the friend and I certainly go on to feel shame for what I have done.

Some say “Forget about it.” I find it healthier and more liberating to frankly declare my ownership. If I do not acknowledge my proprietorship of my fuck-ups, I cannot conscientiously claim the good things.

The high road compels me to get out of auto-pilot and travel in manual. I must obsessively watch every word and every deed until the episode passes. But when I screw up, I say “I did that.” I apologize and I tighten my lips. (My Big Mouth and my High-and-Holy-Rages are the worst aspects of my jumps into hyperactive absurdity.) Afterwards, I can ponder what I did well. Those around me may be inclined to focus on the bad, but I account for both the bad and the good. It’s true: bright marbles come out of mania as well as shattered glass. I push them all into the memory box and ride the beams of the sunset to the place where it is dawn.