My Mania.

These are pieces of what mania typically looks like for me.

1. Trouble falling asleep or less need for sleep.
2. Less appetite but
3. Greater tendency to cook.
4. Tendency to clean walls, doors, or cabinets whereas I usually don't even notice them.
5. Need for constant stimulation, which may include a
6. Need to listen to music constantly or 
7. Drive to remain in constant conversation with others.
8. Tendency to sing or dance frequently as part of a 
9. Need to perform.
10. Psychomotor agitation that may include
11. Inability to sit still,
12. Shaking hands,
13. Fidgeting or odd posture, or a
14. Need to walk or pace, usually while listening to music.
15. Tendency to open my eyes too wide.
16. Racing thoughts, including
17. New ideas that may or may not make sense and a
18. Tendency to talk to myself or intense have one-sided conversations aloud.
19. Pressured speech, which can manifest as
20. Rapid speaking,
21. Interrupting (or struggling not to interrupt), or
22. Long, frequent text messages or E-mails along with a
23. Desperate need to say everything I think and feel.
24. Grandiosity, sometimes including a
25. Belief that everything I think and feel (23) is vital to me and some others, a
26. Belief that I am or should be fascinating to everyone (and great disappointment if I'm not clearly so),
27. Specific and often unrealistic moment-by-moment, emotionally-charged expectations of others (exactly what one will say or do), or an
28. Inflated belief in my abilities and even interests.
29. Overthinking and over-analysis of everything, including
30. Scrutiny of everything important people say and do, word-by-word, glance-by-glance, and a
31. Likelihood to become hurt, insecure, and combative with little provocation.
32. Obsessive thinking, which can include a
33. Desire to become completely enmeshed with someone or someones, a 
34. Conscious or unconscious belief that my happiness or wellness depends an individual or individuals, a
35. Need for hyper-intimacy, sometimes to the point of disrupting another person's routine, 
36. Intense bouts of research on a particular topic, or
37. Fixation on certain objects or ideas.
38. Intense attraction to lists, systems, categorization, and ranking, whether or not it is significant or makes sense.
39. Irritability, often related to 27.
40. Perfectionalism or a critical perspective, related to greater noticing of details (as in 4).
41. Impulsivity, which can include
42. Excessive shopping, particularly online and usually with a certain fixation such as makeup or paper dolls,
43. Starting arguments or escalating conflicts in a (usually futile) effort to get something I need, or
44. Making sudden changes in plans (which is usually unlike me) or making new plans.
45. Tendency to excess in activities such as
46. Prolific writing in some form,
47. Highly-focused reading or reading from numerous sources, or
48. Intensely-focused tasks or projects, whether or not they are valuable or appropriate at the time.
49. Greater awareness of and confidence in personal appearance.
50. Almost self-destructive vulnerability.

Spotlight on Symptoms: Love Sickness.

I remember my darling friend Melissa giving me a red and white, pill-shaped soap that said Lovesick.

I might feel lovesick over an experience, an object, a memory, a person. A song may grab me by the neck, and I'm lost in those words and sounds for hours or days. The words line my throat. I want to watch the same movie on repeat, search the faces and memorize the dialog.

Sometimes, I have to stop myself from squeezing and kissing Oliver as much as I may suddenly want to. He's little, but his boundaries still matter. I ask for hugs, ask if he wants me to pick him up if he's scared or hurt.

I check out my husband and seek his touch. I wrote all about it.

None of this is bad, but I can feel the cross over when I suddenly can barely breathe, and what ever I love expands in my mind.

It's different from obsession because obsession is for something I seek out. Love sickness happens to me. Electricity down my arms. Pliers at my heart. A gaping, exhausting need for connection.

Love sickness usually comes or at least begins when I'm manic. It's a symptom. But I've experienced it in the dark too. Maybe it's worse then.

Love sickness burns. I try to reshape it, make it something that warms me.

Spotlight on Symptoms: Music and Movement.

Music has always been able to change, enhance, or express my mood.

I remember being ten or so when my mom told me that my dad and I have the same experience with music. "You want to get inside it," she said. My dad and I have bonded over music for most of my life. I sang along in the car. He bought me the CD (showtunes) when I'd only saved enough for the tape. He played his keyboard for me. We've gone to many concerts.

Music may seep into my mind or knock me flat. I can become painful when I'm manic. I have musical collages in my mind. A playlist tells a story. I have a Spotify playlist can "This Thorn" (referencing the new testament's Paul and his unspecified suffering), which tells a mental illness story.

When I am even a little manic, I feel especially drawn to music. I sing and dance more. I have to keep moving, either in a cerebral or a physical way. My own music videos play out with colors and images. I usually want to listen to the music on my own--I don't want distraction, and I'm especially vulnerable to any criticism or teasing. Often, I'll wear headphones to keep everything in my head.

Some songs become jars in which I can store my feelings or experiences, so they don't torment me when I can't handle them.

I tend to walk, sometimes outside but mostly in the living room and kitchen, when I listen to music. I walked all over my parents' house when I lived there.

I remember wearing earbuds and pacing around my friend's dining room table when I was 13, trying to calm a crushing crush. Nobody really acted like it was strange. But then that friend, Hannah, did tend to be tuned into my moods.

I see music and pacing as symptom and treatment. If you see me pacing with music, I'm probably having a mood swing. It can hurt, but it usually helps. I navigate between songs that are too much and songs that are just right. But music can also become accompaniment to dark thoughts when depression closes in and I'm suspended between moods. Too much Evanescence, too much Air Supply, too much Sunset Boulevard.

I listen. I pace. The other noises in my mind (especially the voice that tells me I'm always doing something wrong) clear out or at least get quieter. The burns on my brain stop sizzling. Life might be livable. I keep moving. I keep listening.

Spotlight on Symptoms: Obsession.

I've always been obsessive. As a preteen, I spent hours listening to showtunes, planning plays (most of which never happened), and watching the same movies over and over. I did almost nothing in moderation. I went wild for Irish step dance. I had a semi-dark longing to be an actor. I lost my mind over Titanic. I had an intense Harriet the Spy phase.

I've sometimes tries to disconnect the wires of obsession, but I usually just trip over them and fall hard. When I'm full-blown manic, obsessions take on a sharp edge and can be maddening.

Phantom and Sunset Boulevard were two of my strongest obsessions. The music made me feel a kind of pain and a joy of internal freedom. It cracked me open.

Some other obsessions have included stickers, conjoined and parasitic twins, American Horror Story, swimming, water in all forms, certain celebrities (currently, Ben Platt), Fun Home, makeup (recurring!), Betsey Johnson necklaces, texting Bruce (a million times a day for years!), and simply being Bruce's friend (quite complicated and difficult for me until fairly recently).

I made full use of Google and YouTube for all this, pursuing hard. It can be both exhilarating and exhausting. It takes up a lot of time and sometimes money. I try to determine what is fine or good and what is unhealthy. Mania, even traces of it, creates energy that must latch onto something.

Right now, I'm obsessed with Dear Evan Hansen and anything related to it. Though I have been a little manic lately, this obsession mostly just asks for time. It makes me happy, so we're letting it be.

As I grew up, I tried to avoid past and new obsessions because they overwhelmed me. But I'm trying to be open again. So I try to surround myself with what is beautiful and healing in the hopes that my next obsession will be a positive one (even if it's weird).

The Cage That Soars; The Cage That Sinks.

An image of a black cube of a cage came to mind as I was thinking of ways to describe bipolar disorder. I'll mix my metaphors at bit.

Mania is a cage that soars. The wind blows between the bars. The sunlight is blinding. The air is thin. But the prisoner can touch the clouds.

The person cannot escape what comes hours or months later: the drop. All the organs rise and fight for release. The beautiful landscape is coming too quickly.

And eventually, the cage is in the water. Maybe one fights at first, kicking and biting to escape. Or maybe one is just so tired from the flight. The slow descent shows iridescent and indifferent fish, like other people who are neurotypical and just don't know. The light fades. The bubble stop rushing. This is depression. There is no escape unless someone or something lifts the cage.

Medication can cushion and revive. The truth I'm learning is that medication puts me right on the dock, where I can peer at the sky or the ocean, where I can get sunburned or splashed. It's a parachute; it's CPR.

But I'm still in the cage.

Wild.

I love the word wild. I think that started when I was little-ish and watched a movie or show in which a guy sang "Wild Thing" to a girl. I think being wild must be pretty awesome.

As I've grown up, I've embodied the word in many ways. When I was 16 I was wild with creative energy. I wrote wildly whenever I could. I practically ate books. I think this was one of my first rounds of mania though of course I wouldn't get a diagnosis for over a decade. This was a sparkling mania--a great joy and wild belief in my uniqueness and worth, probably grandiosity. I still think of it as one of the best periods of my life.

I was wild at 17 too, but this mania was like metal, shining but dangerous. I made terrible choices. And after that, I went wild trying to escape my life (and probably myself).

I've been wild about water and swimming. My eye makeup is often wild (a sign I'm feeling well or working toward wellness). I've loved people wildly. Sometimes, my teaching was probably wild, with wild expectations. I feel wild when I see a show that stuns me.

Some wildness is good, and I hope I will keep some of it. It's not just the disease; it's also me.

Terms: My Mania.

Bipolar disorder seems to affect people in different ways that may not be clear. At first, I had trouble matching my experience with the terms for symptoms.

Sometimes, my thoughts turn joyful or terrifying, either way running over me, over and over, until I am fragile and exhausted. I can quickly forget what I was pondering, and other ideas push to get through. But I didn't call that "racing thoughts."

Sometimes, pouring out some of these thoughts by talking to someone for a long time, jumping among subjects, leaving ideas incomplete, and generally confusing the listener can give me some relief. Over the phone and in person, I sometimes feel desperate to keep the conversation going as if I will lose the person if I let the words end. But I didn't see that as "pressured speech."

There's also risky and impulsive behaviors. I took risks growing up, but that just seemed like teenager stuff. After Oliver was born, I began shopping online, mostly for work clothes. More and more and more. It made me happy except for the bit of guilt that squeezed into my throat and chest. It was definitely risky and impulsive even though I wasn't buying cars or having affairs.

All these are still with me sometimes in various forms, though the medication sands down the edges. But I'm glad to have names for my symptoms. I know more about who I am.

Unrestrained Delight.

This phrase is from something by Janis Owens. Wow. This is not something I experience often.

When I was going through a manic obsession with swimming, I seemed to fall in love with water. I sometimes swam twice a day. I loved colls showers, and I put water on my wrists and arms when I was overwhelmed. When I couldn't sleep, Josh was drag a wet washcloth over my back. It was a frenzy. Of course, lithium was also making me insanely thirsty. So water was magical all around. I needed to be in it, and I needed to fill myself with it.

I've had other manic delights, such as buying work clothes. I hunted for absurd deals online. I waited for the packages. The guilt was not enough to fight the delight.

But unrestrained delight doesn't come only from illness. I often feel great delight as a show begins--the house lights go down, the orchestra tunes up. Usually, I have no idea what I'm getting into. But often, the delight continues through the show. I used to have unrestrained delight just over showtunes and programs full of bright photos.

I feel unrestrained delight some time in a bookstore, paper-rich gift shops, unexpected favorites like fairies and Disney princesses--so much to see and ponder.

I usually feel joy when I start a new journal or new book. So much possibility is there. I feel that delight when I open a gift--who chose this? Why? What wonder can I do with this and the love in it?