This is not the intended post I had on my plate next for this topic. This just sorta cropped up. I often discuss the dark, angry, depressive side of my BPD (that sometimes likes to mask as Bipolar. For that matter I may have both Bipolar and BPD. The two overlap in ways so it hard to diagnose. My treatment wouldn’t be any different though.). Here is a note on the flip side.

It seems around 11pm last night, I flipped into a manic. I’m better now. A bit more even. A little tired perhaps.

I can’t even begin to share all the details but here are a few glimpse into what me manic is like.

• I had about 4 Pandora stations created and going named “manic a”, “manic b”, “manic c”, and “manic d”. I was trying to keep it none stop upbeat tempo music. I never could find anything that was fast enough. The other reason I had 4 stations going was because I was getting bored with songs half way through and I was out of skips.
• Starting every hour on the hour between 2 and 5 am I sent out a call over twitter/facebook reading ” Two o’clock and all is well. Is there anybody out there?” I got some interesting responses and talked to a few total strangers. Things really picked up when England woke up for the day. (Please note I have a lot of followers on Twitter and friends on facebook who are total strangers to me. Readers of this blog and friends of friends of friends. I network. Oh and facebook too because of needing neighbors in fishville. Don’t look at me like that.)
• I don’t think poor Jesse will ever be the same after the conversation we had. He doesn’t know what to do with a manic Karen. He barely tolerates me as is. Part of me wants to post that conversation up here in all it’s glory but I’ll refrain. The highlight was shared in an earlier post regarding the computers reading minds. It’s down there somewhere. The other highlight was why I’d be a good hooker. Something to do with money making me horny. Sorry, tmi I know. BTW Jesse is the one that figured out I was manic because it was my first double pay day (which is why hookers entered the conversation). I really hope I don’t have this to look forward to every Friday night.
• I actually had a couple of conversations dealing with hookers. My favorite was whether or not the profession survived the current economy struggles. My bet was, and is, that it’ll survive the end of times. It is one of the oldest professions.
• Actually, pretty much read my twitter stream. You can find it here.
• Body effect wise my mind was racing beyond control. Fast thoughts and lots of them. Fingers struggling to keep up with my mind when I typed. By heart was also racing to keep up. I wish I had thought to stop and take my pulse. Then again, I wasn’t stopping for anything. My palms were sweaty but my body was strangely cooled, where normally I’m over heated.
• Finally at around 6am I got bored and ran out of people to talk to. Blogs, twitter and facebook were all caught up on. Funnies I’d given up on with the new work schedule were even read and I was left with nothing. Nothing to fuel the manic let me calm down. By about 7:30 I crashed into bed and caught a few hours sleep before I had to be up for the day. Even then I was refreshed after just a few hours sleep which isn’t normal. I’m calling that miracle a parting gift from the manic episode.

Manic episodes can be serious. They can lead to some dangerous actions. Drugs, drinking, promiscuous sex. Spending mass amounts of money on a whim that you may not have to spend. People who are manic have been known to jump off buildings thinking they will fly away on the way down. Mania will kill you faster than depression will. It’s very serious and very deadly. It leads to serious risks and serious consequences. There is a reason people with Bipolar are put on a mood stabilizer before they are ever put on an anti depressant. The mood stabilizer is designed to calm down the manic. I myself am on 900mg of the mood stabilizer Trileptal daily. I am very lucky that the worst my manic gets is me being very hyper. Others aren’t so lucky.