I intend to post here whenever I have something new to say about the subjects that concern me, principally mania and depression as they affect your behavior, thought patterns, dreams/goals, relationships, and most importantly, creativity. I’ve a wide range of intellectual interests, so will no doubt bore you with my tin-pot theories on life, the Universe and Everything! I will be excerpting some posts from my general blog. I’m gay, and sometimes my general blog covers matters that wouldn’t ordinarily be of interest to this community, which is why I’ll be posting them here.

Now here goes.

The other day, I met a guy, Michael, at Starbucks (my home away from home - I’m a software developer and work via email and phone), who recognized me from my general blog; he turned out to be also bipolar. We’ve chatted a couple of times now, mainly about our own experiences with mania and depression, and I suddenly realized today that this is something that has been missing from my life: the opportunity to identify with another bipolar person, to compare notes, to see somebody else’s way of coping.

We have very different experiences. Like most people with bipolar disorder, he was diagnosed as a young adult, in his late teens. (It’s unusual for somebody to get to their forties and only then have their first manic episode, like I did.) So he’s been living with this for most of his adult life (he’s in his late thirties now.)

I was curious about the symptoms he experienced when manic, apart from the obvious ones: rushing thoughts, grandiosity, lack of self-censoring etc. It turned out that we experience different things when manic (or, I should say, when I used to get manic, since my mood is completely placid these days.) Michael says his senses are all heightened, and his cognitive abilities actually improve. In my case, I used to find that I became physically clumsy, had problems with my speech, and, although I feel that I was “smarter” when manic, I also made lots of cognitive mistakes, and would often lose things. (At the height of my mania, I had everything fastened to my jeans with chains: my wallet, my keys and my phone.)

We agreed with one another that irritability was a common experience, but in many other areas, it didn’t seem that our experience was similar. I’m wondering, not for the first time, whether a pet theory of mine is valid or not: that mania tends to emphasize your own natural qualities. It would make sense, since it loosens your inhibitions. So when I was manic, my vices (impatience, a strong sense of justice, a desire to fix everything) got me into trouble, while my better qualities came to the fore and enhanced both pleasure and relating to others.

The thing is, I don’t know much about others’ experiences. The people you tend to read about are all people who’ve gone off the rails: I rarely read about anybody who’s fought the disease to a stand-still. So I don’t really know what the right way of “being” is.

For instance, there was an article in the science section of the New York Times yesterday, about a bipolar medical researcher, who, according to the reporter, used her periods of mania to fuel creativity. There was no mention, in the article, of the dangers of deliberately allowing yourself to become manic. I find myself getting annoyed when I read articles like this, since the writer is usually uninformed about all aspects of the disorder.

Believe me, I miss the creative ideas I used to get when I went through the many very minor hypomanic episodes through mid-2007. When I look back at the blogs I wrote back then, they were much more colorful and insightful (if a bit too ripe sometimes.) I’d be running, say, and start thinking about the way we perceive the world around us, and thought would jump upon thought until I had a full-fledged pot theory begging to be described in a new blog. I’d rush home, and scribble down my ideas before I lost them. A sample:

As I jogged further (I suppose I should say “as I perceived myself jogging further” but let’s try to keep this simple), I thought that maybe the mind is powered by an enormous computer. Maybe the universe really does exist in some form, but we ourselves are incorporeal. And what if I - or you for that matter - was/were the only mind? You’d have no way of knowing for sure: the computer could be mocking up all your friends and family right along with the Los Angeles cityscape and the daisies.

Since I’m no longer on a roller-coaster (I’m on more an infinite flat plane with a few valleys), I no longer have hypomanic periods, and I feel that much of my creativity has lost some color. Do I have the right to reclaim that by twiddling with my medication? I’m sure my psychiatrist would strongly advise against it, as would my partner, Ben. Yet I know that many bipolar people do that: is that a norm, or are such people an exception? Is it possible to allow yourself some minor mania and keep it under control? Certainly when I had hypomanic periods in the past I didn’t do anything crazy, spend money, or engage in any other of the self-destructive behaviors common to full-blown mania.

I’m asking rhetorical questions, I know. But at least I now have somebody to talk to who grapples with some of the same questions, rather than just get the opinion of a psychiatrist who can only speak from the stand-point of the norms of treating the illness, but has no direct knowledge of how it feels. I certainly wouldn’t toy with my medications without talking to my psychiatrist, and with Ben; but as the time when I’m on this flat plane extends into the future, I think I’ll probably ask these questions more frequently.