What Mania Is Really Like
Author Hayley Watkins
Well, I’ll tell you one thing… it’s not always a euphoric feeling of happiness with enough energy to feel like you could conquer the world. I hear people say they wish they were manic. They wish they could feel that happiness. They wish they could feel that high. But, in reality, mania means way more than the feeling of an abundance of “happiness”.
Ever since I was diagnosed as bipolar, I’ve struggled to come to terms with what mania really means for me, and determining the times when I am depressed, when I am manic, and when I am in a healthy state of “in-between”. Well, what am I like when I’m really manic? Let’s see…
I have more energy than usual.
I don’t require as much sleep.
I am more loving and friendly towards others.
I am creative.
I come up with a million new ideas, that I can write about all night long.
My sex drive sky rockets.
While these can seem like harmless, maybe even good qualities to have, let me also tell you about the dark side that comes along with being manic.
I talk too fast, to the point where people think I’m on something.
I make rash decisions, that seem logical to me at the time, but, in reality, are far from logical.
My thinking is distorted, and my thoughts are irrational.
I have zero impulse control. I think of something and immediately act upon it without thinking of the consequences.
I feel like I have so much love to give but am incapable of giving anything “real” at all.
I want to stir up chaos for my own amusement. I am excruciatingly bored.
You see… mania is when you spend all the money in your bank account because you got the sudden urge to go get tattooed, only to come up short for rent, fighting with your significant other about how it’s going to get paid now.
Mania is when you have more energy than you know what to do with, so you try to fill that energy with getting drunk or high, only to not wake up in the morning, causing you to miss work and jeopardize your job.
Mania is not being able to control your sex drive or your impulses, so you cheat on the one person who loves and cares for you all because you’re just craving something to make you feel alive for 5 seconds, only to leave you crying on your bathroom floor after realizing what you’ve done.
Mania is having affairs with married men, because the “thrill” of it all ignites a fire inside of you, not caring or even comprehending that you are wreaking havoc in an entire family.
Mania is when you try drugs, because “one time won’t hurt”, causing you to lose custody of your kids, turning their lives completely upside down.
I could go on and on about the things I’ve done while manic, but the truth is, no matter how much of a “high” I was on, no matter how “fun” or “exciting” those things seemed to be in that moment, each one of them left me in a pit of heart-wrenching despair. Each one of those things has had serious consequences that left me feeling hopeless, hateful (of myself) and confused.
Mania is not fun. It is not something to take lightly. Mania is something that can ruin your life, and the lives of the people around you. It is not a game to be played with. It is not some fun euphoric happiness that ends in a slight downfall. It is real, it is raw, it doesn’t discriminate, and it leaves you with a lot of messes to clean up.
Mania is this monster inside of me fighting for first place, but the winner never comes out with anything but heartache. It is this inner feeling of absolute chaos that makes you want to build and destroy something all at the same time. It is not poetic. It is not artistic. It is not something that should be romanticized.
Haley Watkins, from Houston TX, is a single mother of 2 who hopes to share real, raw content about the struggles of mental illness in hopes to letting people know they're not alone, as well as try to end the stigma against mental illness. She originally published this piece on Invisible Illness, a Medium publication.