Comment by cc23 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cc23 | Hacker News Reader

This is article is borderline offensive for people that actually experience mania. The author cherry picks symptoms to say that chronic mania always feels good for the manic. This is definitely not the case for bipolar mania, and a quick Google search shows this is not the case for chronic mania. In fact, many chronic mania patients are characterized as dysphoric.

Yes, mania feels good at times, really good, but at other times, it feels extremely uncomfortable. Your euphoric emotions can quickly turn to anger. Being aggressive usually has it's roots in some emotion that is not pleasant. Even just general speeding is not pleasant all of the time. Sure, there may be a few people who experience chronic mania in a way that doesn't ever feel bad for them. But most manic people experience negative subjective feelings from their mania at one point or another.

To say that mania always feels good, and is a state to aspire to, is dangerous for people who actually do experience mania, and extremely tone deaf and out of touch for those who don't experience mania.

Thank you so much for saying this. Bipolar disorder is badly misunderstood by the general population, but one of the most common misconceptions is that mania is the opposite of depression and therefore good. For me, mania was hell on earth. The risk of self-harm is a lot higher in mania than depression and doctors are far more concerned with stopping mania than depression, to the extent they won’t treat depression if the risk of mania is too high.

One source of this misconception is the stereotype of people creating art while manic (probably hypomanic). Another is that bipolar disorder is a big spectrum and many type 2 people having hypomania with some euphoric aspects. But I don’t think I’ve met anyone who isn’t type 1 or knows someone who is that has a good understanding that mania is very often a nightmare. After my last manic episode finished I pretty much laid in bed for 6 months doing nothing but fantasizing about killing myself and I’d much rather relive that then relive the mania that preceded it.

The author does pay some lip service to this:

>>(Often in these case studies the euphoria is punctuated by irritability, but not sadness or depressed mood.) Now, most of the examples we know of these prolonged euphoric states are undesirable. They often come with reckless or harmful behavior, delusions, and cognitive impairment.

But I agree, I think most of the manic episodes described should probably be called euphoric hypomania.

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