For a person with bipolar disorder, hypomania is the place to be! Hypomania is a wonderful area on the mood spectrum. As one of my favorite authors says, it’s three-quarters manic. With hypomania, a person has all the good things about mania, sans the dangerous disregard for consequences.
For me, I am my best self when I am hypomanic. Thoughts and ideas are unfettered, and I am able to follow them through to their logical conclusion (unlike full-blown mania when racing thoughts are common, if not inevitable). I am particularly witty and funny. Writing comes more naturally. I am normally asocial, but when hypomanic, I actually want to be around people—shock and awe!
As fun as hypomania is, it’s still a form of mania, which means it doesn’t take much for it to come crashing down. Irritability is a hallmark of mania, and I have learned that underneath my highs of hypomania, there is an sinister sense of irritability lurking beneath the surface. Sometimes it gets triggered, and sometimes it doesn’t, but watch out when it does. I can be a ruthless and unpleasant person if the beast of irritability decides to rear its head.
Ironically, my funniest jokes and stories are sometimes the results of these crashes. The jokes and stories are typically dark and sardonic, but they are hysterical as well (in every sense of that word). I have worked on harnessing the humor derived from my irritability by writing sarcastic rants and other funny diatribes.
I am lucky, I am almost always in a good place with my moods, thanks to my doctor and medicine; but hypomania is special. I try not to take it for granted. I can be productive and fun without it, but some truly magical things happen during hypomania.
*Note: I assure you there will be more tales of hypomania in posts to come. It’s too fun not to talk about!
Between Two Poles 