Mania can become dangerous to the person experiencing it. The media has hyped mania as being a great feeling or just being overactive. It’s not quite that simple. If a person has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, then it may be hard for them to differentiate between feeling better and being manic without someone in their lives pointing out. There may be people that enjoy being with someone more because they are in a manic state, but at the end of the night the party ends. Below are the four classes of recognizing mania.
Rapid speech, Activities, and Thoughts-
It is important to remember is that the manic symptoms that someone might see are like an iceberg where the biggest portion of the problem is one that you can not see. The symptom that may be noticed first is that the person experiencing a manic episode seems to be in a blur. They may be talking so rapidly that they seem hard to understand and might be constantly moving their bodies for example: jumping up and down and rushing from room to room for no apparent reason. They are generally very energetic and could be going from task to task so quickly that they cause mistakes.
Impulsiveness-
Someone experiencing mania might become very impulsive as well. A frequent symptom that is used to diagnose mania is compulsive shopping. This may result oftentimes in someone spending far more than they can afford because they are paying more attention to the reward of buying something new than they are to how much it might cost. This impulsiveness can also extend to substance abuse or promiscuousness. Unfortunately, all this impulsiveness is rewarded with guilt and regret more often then a positive feeling.
Hallucinations and Delusions-
If this mania is left to get out of control, a person might begin experiencing delusions and hallucinations. This would be recognized only if the person acts out or mentions that it is going on. Delusions of grandeur are fairly common, believing that they possess genius, fame, wealth or omnipotence that they do not. Hallucinations are usually visual or auditory, but can be applied to any of the five senses receiving information that is not true.
No Sleep or Weight Change-
If someone is not sleeping at all and seems to be very high functioning then there should be some concern. The same with eating far too much or far to little and there becomes a drastic weight change over a short period of time.
Mania is hard for the person experiencing it to recognize by themselves. They may feel great and even “high” and not want to come down from their mountain. Unfortunately mania is almost always followed by a severe and miserable crash of depression. This up and down swing can result in consequences. Suicide attempts, hospitalizations, financial fall, or even STDs. Mania should not be taken as a joke and needs treatment as soon as possible.
