What is Mania?
Initially, a state of mind reminiscent of how you felt as a child waking up on Christmas day, multiplied by the power of five. Being hypomanic is like having endless energy, along with wonderful enthusiasm and self-worth. The world around you seems brilliant and a kaleidoscope of opportunities. You feel so multi-talented you are able to complete daily chores in a fraction of their normal time, and to keep occupied you concentrate on learning to speak Russian and play the piano whilst becoming a grandmaster of roulette. It’s possible to believe you are a Superman, Napoleon or Jesus Christ, where you see everyone’s problems and potential, flaws and beauty, and make grand plans to turn the planet into a better place.
Yet as hypomania accelerates into mania, it is like an express train travelling with no brakes, quite slowly at first but gathering speed. Ultimately, you have no fear, and each day you remain high, and any sense of danger diminishes. You may normally be afraid of heights, but you take part in a skydiving event and then sign up to a course to learn to become an instructor. So many brilliant ideas keep coming into your head, you consider hiring Ideas Ltd. Your confidence is so sparkling and powerful, your point of view so tangible, you are able to convince friends, family, work colleagues and complete strangers of anything. Those that cannot quite convince, you temporarily lie to, until the time is right to explain the truth.
Everything you once dared to remotely fantasize or dream about doing now seems within your grasp. How could you have ever been depressed? You need very little sleep and feel capable of achieving anything providing there is enough time. You’ve become super combative and ready and willing to take on anyone in court, the boxing ring or even the three abusive louts shouting down the street. Outlandish but possible business schemes are galloped into with loans from banks or acquaintances. Property acquisition, artistic and charitable endeavours can also be launched with gusto, and often funded by the money borrowed for the business scheme. It’s all the same isn’t it? Anyway, it’s all my money and I’ll balance the books later with a hundred times more.
As the train speeds up, so does your spending and uninhibited sex drive. You don’t mean to spend five times more than you have but you do because you know one of your schemes will soon be making millions. You are making two hundred calls and sending the same amount of emails per day. No one got anywhere without taking risks and by not thinking big. Consequently, you now only travel first class, dress first class and have champagne and caviar for breakfast. Mindful of others who are less fortunate, you buy up the stock of a sweet shop and have it delivered to a children’s hospital ward. As a reward you test drive three Ferraris, but instead of being extravagant, settle on only leasing two. Your sex drive is so high it’s gone completely off the dial. You meet people in bars, stepping out of cabs, buying milk in shop and after a moment’s conversation invite them back to your place.
Your train is heading off the rails with all its speed and pressure gauges about to explore. The incredible energy coursing through your veins can turn into a massively negative charge of paranoia and anxiety but you try not to notice because you don’t believe anything is wrong. You believe that you are omnipotent; you are Mozart, Bowie, Rumpole, Casanova, Geldof and Clint Eastwood rolled into one.
From the outside, mania is the stage after hypomania. As a person’s energy and stress levels rise higher and higher, the mind disintegrates. The person stops sleeping and becomes involved in a tireless series of activities. Manic individuals can become aggressive if challenged or stopped from doing what they want or need to do. Mania, unless reversed by drug or other physical intervention, can lead to death as the individual exhausts him- or herself through lack of sleep and ever-increasing activity.
