Thunder's Muse
Well-known member
I agree. From my experience, maniacs tend to be uncontrollable and not suffering from the same symptoms. They can often appear to be normal people, until the right stimulus comes around. It takes a great deal of studying these terms and definitions to begin to understand them. I just know them on a cursory basis because I had to do quite a bit of therapy during the last decade, so I can relate to Coffee and what you have shared with us in the past.
As I've briefly mentioned on here in passing before, I'm hypomanic, which is like the opposite of depression. Some people say that is an advantage because you don't sleep but 4 or 5 hours a day, and you are highly driven. Those people either don't have it or they don't understand that they are prone to having a disconnected view of theirself though. We tend to think of ourselves as perfect and beyond reproach, far too optimistic. Just as an example, when I was about 8 or so, I saw my first rattlesnake. I knew it was poisonous but I wanted to play with it. So, I took off running to try and grab it, I didn't think anything bad would happen to me because it was me. My grandfather stopped me though :chuckle: .
I'm blessed in some ways though. I rarely get sad and never get angry. I've been taught that as long as I avoid caffeine, sugar, dance/disco/funk music and other types of stimulates I operate normal. I still only sleep about 5 hours a day (though I don't drink anything but water and I work 10 hour days), give or take and I sometimes get a little too giddy and get all Joker-esque on people. Some of that may seem positive but when you work 10 hours straight physical labor and realize you forgot to take a lunch or break because you never felt tired, you realize you messed up once your body starts to break down. The big difference is someone who is criminally insane would never be able to understand these things about theirself, to know they have a problem and how to control it.
Yeah, it does help if you are able to understand yourself, the triggers etc.
It's such a facinating and impossibly complex subject... I could talk about this stuff all day :chuckle: