notes from the hypo manic

One positive note of having an affective disorder is the seemingly unbounded creative powers that you develop during a manic phase. I feel as though I could write and write, all through the night and all through the day (a habit of which I still practice during hypomanic episodes). I refer the word hypomanic to mean “mild” or “short-lived.” “Hyper” manic sometimes denotes a psychosis, but not always. Sometimes someone in this state of mind feels no boundaries and can create so much material—and often, quite good—that it seems uncanny witnessed by someone in a balanced state of mind. If the manic episode is controlled, it can be beneficial. Many writers had bi-polar disorder or even schizoaffective, but they created such fine works it is strange that there wasn’t “something else” producing them. The human mind remains mysterious, the great unknown. Why are there people ruined by mental illness, but some benefit from it? God works in clandestine ways. I feel that I have benefited from the illness in terms of creativity, and bending my perceptions so that I can write from a slightly different angle, but there is also the problematic truth that the disorder ruined my social life, my vocational, and stole my motivation—however, luckily not my education. Amazingly, and I thank God for this, who else is there? But my intellect has been preserved almost one hundred percent. After what my brain has been through, and what I’ve put in it, I’m surprised that I can even think. But I can, so life is a beautiful thing, I’m just taking a different route to wherever it is I’m going. In fact, I would even give you all the opportunity to experience the manic phase one time, and you would see, that there is a reason that no one wants to take their lithium; it feels great.