I’m beginning to enter the season for mania. Traditionally, I have a mania at the beginning of august or september, and that continues on until october where I have about a month of normalcy followed by a wintertime depression. So now comes the time to see how well abilify manages my manias at the level that it’s currently at. I’ll separate it out into hypomania and mania management.
Hypomania:
Abilify does a great job and preserving a hypomania, while not allowing it to expand beyond its boundaries. I have my usual energy that keeps me going, but I do fatigue and I can sleep at night. I have greater creativity than normal, but it also keeps me focused. I try out new ideas and experiment abundantly with bizarre avenues of attack in philosophy. There’s still the flurry of ideas, and out of the main arguments, I find that while they contain a kernel of truth, the expanded idea is usually bunk. My thoughts are also not delusional by any means. I day dream a lot, much more than most people I believe (I day dream constantly in a literal sense). But that’s part of my creative process when hypomanic. And abilify keeps the day dreams from becoming delusions.
Eating is also not a necessity when hypomanic. It’s no longer due to nausea. Instead, it’s just plain lack of need to eat. In fact, I usually have more energy when I do not eat. This has changed from my previous manias where I ate quite a bit due to my metabolism’s increase. But now digestion just slows me down. So I eat light food. A few carbs and protein are perfect for not weighing me down.
All in all, abilify keeps the hypomania stable and allows me to have a fairly productive day while maintaining the edges. It’s letter boxing my moods to keep me rational, which is greatly appreciated.
Mania:
Abilfy at 10mg does an interesting job of maintaining mania. I still have some slight delusions. I feel hypersexual and think that a lot of women are attracted to me. But again, there are few delusional thoughts as far as I can tell. I don’t think I’m a super human god that can take on the world. Instead, I have a fairly rational outlook on what I should and should not do. There are still some impulses to burst out, but it is much easier to contain them.
There is still some reckless behavior. I found myself driving at excessive speeds with the idea that I could control the car no matter what. It took my girlfriend to keep me focused on the speed limit on the way back to the festival. Which, as an aside, produced an interesting control behavior. Rather than driving as fast as I could, I tried to drive at exactly the speed limit and enjoy the reactions of all the other drivers. It’s rather dickish, but it keeps me safe compared to driving at 90mph down country roads.
Stamina is also incredible. Yesterday I put in a 15 hour work shift running a music festival, driving 2 hours, and maintaining a highly stressful position of running sound for about a dozen bands. Last night at 3am I simply passed out when I finally got home and then woke up this morning at 8. A little groggy, but I had also had a few drinks and smoked constantly yesterday.
Which leads to a quick remark that while I feel like I need to drink, I don’t drink excessively. Last mania I had, I was at the same festival. I had a good 20 beers, this season only 2.5.
I also lack a great deal of pressured speech compared to before. While my thoughts are going at a thousand miles an hour, and my focus is a little shoddy, I do not need to talk all the time. Generally speaking, abilify has caused me to be more withdrawn and contained in both mania and hypomania.
In retrospect, and this is still while I’m in a mania reflection on a mania, I would say that abilify greatly increased my impulse control and kept me fairly rational. I lacked a great deal of delusions and I still kept my creativity and stamina. Like hypomania, it cuts off the extremes. In hypomania, abilify keeps them rounded off so that they do not grow out of control into a mania, and in a mania, I have far fewer reckless behaviors and keep relatively sane. And over all, I like that I’m still able to get some manias if they’re this creative and enduring. I’m not sure I know anyone who wouldn’t want to still have manias if they also have depressions. Abilify doesn’t prevent me from having them, but it does letter box the extremes, which at the end of the day is what I really wanted. I don’t want to be normal, I just want to cap the extremes.
Philosophy, Science, Bipolar I, and Life
I’m beginning to enter the season for mania. Traditionally, I have a mania at the beginning of august or september, and that continues on until october where I have about a month of normalcy followed by a wintertime depression. So now comes the time to see how well abilify manages my manias at the level that it’s currently at. I’ll separate it out into hypomania and mania management.
Hypomania:
Abilify does a great job and preserving a hypomania, while not allowing it to expand beyond its boundaries. I have my usual energy that keeps me going, but I do fatigue and I can sleep at night. I have greater creativity than normal, but it also keeps me focused. I try out new ideas and experiment abundantly with bizarre avenues of attack in philosophy. There’s still the flurry of ideas, and out of the main arguments, I find that while they contain a kernel of truth, the expanded idea is usually bunk. My thoughts are also not delusional by any means. I day dream a lot, much more than most people I believe (I day dream constantly in a literal sense). But that’s part of my creative process when hypomanic. And abilify keeps the day dreams from becoming delusions.
Eating is also not a necessity when hypomanic. It’s no longer due to nausea. Instead, it’s just plain lack of need to eat. In fact, I usually have more energy when I do not eat. This has changed from my previous manias where I ate quite a bit due to my metabolism’s increase. But now digestion just slows me down. So I eat light food. A few carbs and protein are perfect for not weighing me down.
All in all, abilify keeps the hypomania stable and allows me to have a fairly productive day while maintaining the edges. It’s letter boxing my moods to keep me rational, which is greatly appreciated.
Mania:
Abilfy at 10mg does an interesting job of maintaining mania. I still have some slight delusions. I feel hypersexual and think that a lot of women are attracted to me. But again, there are few delusional thoughts as far as I can tell. I don’t think I’m a super human god that can take on the world. Instead, I have a fairly rational outlook on what I should and should not do. There are still some impulses to burst out, but it is much easier to contain them.
There is still some reckless behavior. I found myself driving at excessive speeds with the idea that I could control the car no matter what. It took my girlfriend to keep me focused on the speed limit on the way back to the festival. Which, as an aside, produced an interesting control behavior. Rather than driving as fast as I could, I tried to drive at exactly the speed limit and enjoy the reactions of all the other drivers. It’s rather dickish, but it keeps me safe compared to driving at 90mph down country roads.
Stamina is also incredible. Yesterday I put in a 15 hour work shift running a music festival, driving 2 hours, and maintaining a highly stressful position of running sound for about a dozen bands. Last night at 3am I simply passed out when I finally got home and then woke up this morning at 8. A little groggy, but I had also had a few drinks and smoked constantly yesterday.
Which leads to a quick remark that while I feel like I need to drink, I don’t drink excessively. Last mania I had, I was at the same festival. I had a good 20 beers, this season only 2.5.
I also lack a great deal of pressured speech compared to before. While my thoughts are going at a thousand miles an hour, and my focus is a little shoddy, I do not need to talk all the time. Generally speaking, abilify has caused me to be more withdrawn and contained in both mania and hypomania.
In retrospect, and this is still while I’m in a mania reflection on a mania, I would say that abilify greatly increased my impulse control and kept me fairly rational. I lacked a great deal of delusions and I still kept my creativity and stamina. Like hypomania, it cuts off the extremes. In hypomania, abilify keeps them rounded off so that they do not grow out of control into a mania, and in a mania, I have far fewer reckless behaviors and keep relatively sane. And over all, I like that I’m still able to get some manias if they’re this creative and enduring. I’m not sure I know anyone who wouldn’t want to still have manias if they also have depressions. Abilify doesn’t prevent me from having them, but it does letter box the extremes, which at the end of the day is what I really wanted. I don’t want to be normal, I just want to cap the extremes.