Mania

I often find notes to myself written frantically in the midst of mania.
Here is what it is to be manic:

I am afizz and busy and!
My confessions: I am sleeping little; talking a lot. I could scale a mountain – I am off the scale! I keep hearing people call my name in a kind of panic but no-one is there.

Now I am hyper and high and hating it. [In hindsight, I can see that I spend money on things I can ill-afford.] A new mood stabiliser will not start for a few weeks now so I self-medicate with alcohol and sleeping tablets. Alcohol is used as a preservative. It is self-preservation. It is bad, I know, but it helps with the pain. [N.B. It is not wise to drink alcohol, especially in excess, whilst suffering from schizophrenia-related illnesses and on medications. Not only can it make symptoms worse and affect the functioning of medications, it can cause damage to the liver and other organs.]

I feel in trouble. I race through everything: I tend to swallow food almost whole (seemingly chewing is far too time-consuming) and, consequently, I suffer the most awful indigestion much of the day. I talk, I talk over people, I interrupt, I argue, I swear (a lot), I snap, I am rude and brash and lurid, I joke inappropriately and I can’t seem to help myself. I just can’t help myself. I am as likely to burst into song as I am into tears and I laugh for no particular reason.

I live on a knife-edge. Nothing seems to dispel the fear I feel – I can’t even explain it. For me, severe mania is even worse than severe depression. At least in depression I don’t get into so much trouble – indeed I don’t do anything at all. And I can escape into sleep to make the time disappear. Some people flippantly describe a hectic situation as ‘manic’. What do they know.

When you have not slept in a week or so – I lose count – the world slides on differently (or do I mean indifferently?). It is gradual – the drag upon the soul. Walls and floors flex in the swim. Outside of day-night-day, it is much like being locked out of your own house. Others come in and out of your life. I scratch upon everyone’s nerves. I am getting tired but cannot stop or sleep. Mania is like dancing yourself to death. Decency leaves you; confused company leaves you; everything leaves you. On and on, it frightens the life out of you by degrees. It feels like stale champagne now and a hangover. The mind slips and smears. I seep words continually like a weeping wound. And I am ill, but what to do? I don’t think the current medication works all that well but it is worse without it. It shortens the agonies of the cycle somewhat. But, you know, I live for the razzamatazz and all that jazz.