Tbh, this entry could be summarized in a single line: it’s ending when you’re no longer doing the things you were doing during mania. Of course it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to leave it there, even though it could be. Maybe I’m hypo-manic and don’t know ow to shut up. Or it’s just who I am? Enough existential, lets go!
You know when mania is ending when:
Sleep seems reasonable
Sleep feels like a do-able and appealing way to spend an evening. You’ve been navigating the world without sleep nor seeing the need for it for days, perhaps weeks with maybe an hour of sleep here and there. It’s as if your synapses have been cleaned so you can see the logic of why people actually sleep. The further along the road you are on the other side of mania the more logical sleep seems, you might even think: “I should sleep. Maybe I’ll be clearer in the morning?”
Logic returns
The illogical and unreasonable retreat into the shadows. As sound thought and more realistic sense of self returns you may face some really nasty demons as you recount the days of mania that preceded this ‘coming down’. This can be a really nasty time to navigate – you’ll begin to tie together the irrational behaviour with the emotional fallout you’ve left in mania’s wake.
You’re poor
Your credit card bill arrives. Not literally (who still gets posted bills?!) but you find that you’ve got two Amazon orders pending dispatch, a bizarre set of curtains and various other splurges of the ‘I really need’. These ‘I really need’ things will suffer the same fate as those that came before – exiled to the ‘too hard basket’ at the back of a cupboards top shelf. You use another credit card to pay off the one that you’ve burned though in the last month.
Everything takes longer
Everything slows down. The projects you’d lined up while manic are categorised according to necessity and priority. They’re all marvelous plan, by the way. Over the follwing days you’ll put the finishing nails in the projects that you left half finished and shelve the ones that were abandoned early in the manic episode. You’ll also listen to music that is a 10’s of BPM slower. You’ll drive the speed limit again.
A little less interested in sex (okay… a lot)
Your sex drive returns to something the muggles might call normal. It’s boring is your sex life once the mania has passed. So boring in fact it’s not worth the effort. Whether this is a function of the mania subsiding or the effects of resuming taking your medication as prescribed again I can’t say. probably a bit of both.
Depression and self-loathing
Other bipolar sufferers will tell you that they feel a wave of depression coming on. Luckily that, for the most part, isn’t something I struggle with anymore. However, the self-loathing of remembering some of the things you did and said to your friends and colleagues is awful. You’ll start thinking of ways to make amends, and with time you’ll feel genuine sorry for the actions that caused many so much pain.
Loving yourself
You’ll take a shower, eat more healthily (and even eat at all), make your bed and generally take control of your personal space that you’ve properly neglected or turned upside down during the episode. In general your personal hygiene will improve and you’ll see the sense in loving and taking care of yourself again.
These are but a few of the signs I’ve noticed and been cognizant of at the tail end of a (hypo-)manic few weeks. If I could give any one ‘coming down’ from mania one bit of advice it’d be this: don’t beat yourself up.
