Living with Bi-Polar, a review of Stephen Fry’s documentary, and personal experiences Part 3 (Mania)

Part 3 : Mania


Now I realize that parts 1 and 2 were a bit more autobiographical than analytical, but I wanted to give a background. I wanted to show how easy it is to have what may seem like a good support network, when in reality a manic-depressive person is simply unprepared for whatever triggers lie ahead.

In the video, there is discussion about when it is too early to diagnose a child. I will avoid this issue, as it is a personal one. To clarify my last statement, I mean that like its effects, the observation of the behavior will be dependent on the family when dealing with a child. If a family is very close, with parents that have good observational skills and a baseline of what “normal” behavior should be, then it is possible to catch this illness early. However I will again stress that this is up to the family and doctors who know the person best. Medications for treatment are complex at times, and the extent for how they work is still not fully known for all of them. I will segue into teen / early adult life and self-medication, and the dangers it poses for people like me.

Stephen Fry mentions self-medicating briefly, and then moves on. I’m only partway through the second part of this documentary, so I’m not sure if they will come back to it. (He is just now talking to a doctor about Lithium).

So why is self-medication so common with manic-depressives? Well, to know that, you first need to understand the mania. Manic episodes are not like what the word sounds like; well at least some of the time. Depending on the severity of the episode, any number of things can occur. I’m linking the Wikipedia page on mania here, as there is a lot of information written, and I don’t want to simply regurgitate it all. [Mania] Of the utmost importance a person needs to understand that manic episodes are not “neat”. To clarify, they don’t always fit into one type or another. A manic-depressive person can cycle through many different states, up and down, and with varying levels of severity. This is hard for some people to comprehend, and that is understandable.

In the opening sequence, Stephen Fry interviews Carrie Fisher, and she makes some of her own observations on mania. She is not exaggerating that there is no drug that can come close to a manic high. This is absolute truth. No amount of ANY stimulant, psychoactive, or mood altering drug can come close. You may ask yourself, “Really? Come on, there are super-crazy drugs out there, surely SOME of them are more intense?”  To answer this, simply think of what a drug is. It is a chemical that changes the way our brains process information. Each drug targets a specific function, and has a focused chemical reaction / response built in. Now imagine all of the types of behavior drugs can illicit. Now imagine trying to take all of those drugs at once. There are still a finite number of chemical interactions that can take place based on the number of initial reagents you dump into your body. During a manic episode, the brain goes into various stages of hyperdrive/meltdown without any outside chemical input. As vast and near limitless is the brain’s capacity for imagination is, so is its capacity for creating its own runaway reaction. Think of a nuclear reactor that is in a runaway reaction; the more it gets further into the reaction, the more intense and violent it becomes. The same is with the brain during mania. Nothing will stop the runaway reaction unless one of two things happens. Either you run out of fuel, (collapse), or insert an agent to stop the reaction like control rods, (medication).

Since most people are not fond of collapsing due to exhaustion, they will seek other means to cope with mania. As this post is already long, I will discuss the logic, (and fallacy), of the manic-depressive’s rationalizations in self-medicating in the next post.