What are you taking that garbage stuff for? You didn't go telling the doctor that an elf from hyperspace blasted in to your room on a flame shooting out of your pipe, did you?
lol nah but i told friends and family im being eaten by mushrooms. Had a full-blown manic episode for half a year... Crazy long story really. Stopped studying medicine, started coding. First project got me sued by Blizzard, who terrorized me for the past half year through my lawyers who did a 180 on me. Shit was just getting way too much and I just couldn't stop working. The amount of sleep I got decreased continuously until I reached a ~10h sleep after 65-70h waking schedule. Kept havin hallucinations, fucked up a lot of things on the social side. There really was no other option than seeking treatment. I feel really fuckign healthy when I've taken my olanzapine, healthier than I've felt in years. I'm really grateful that drug exists, although I don't plan to take it forever...
Got huge responsibility for my daughter and I want to see her grow up as happy as possible without having to worry about her dad being sick and falling apart further with every day that passes by, before she even enters school. Really my goals are quite humble: Make a living in coding and reach age 55 minimum, ideally put some cash aside for my daughter though she should be good either way... Really I should be able to accomplish these things, but not when I'm hallucinating all day long, am going nuts over having some infectious disease, not eating, not sleeping and starting fights over the most ridiculous things.
Anyway, I was actually curled up unter the shower muttering gibberish at one point in time. A huge part of the problem is that people extend the change in expectation towards what you're saying to pretty much everything. I truely believe that there could be a lot of relief to many shizophrenics and manic or otherwise sub-acutely psychotic people, if someone actually took them seriously. I had a taste of that a few times and each time there was a huge improvement in me afterwards. It was extremely calming. Ofc this is understandable when someone is having huge trouble expressing whatever it is he means to say in a few simple and clearly understandable statements. On one hand there was intense pressure of speech for me all the time, on the other sentences became huge and cryptic lol. Sometimes I'd just chase after the words and try to keep up with their meaning, other times I was underlining random words with sounds and gestures, suddenly switching to a completely different context mid-sentence, just completely lost, but producing a lot of words nonetheless lol.
On the other hand you are right that there is no role for the crazies in our culture and this also adds huge weight to the problem. Nonetheless it is what it is and the shit helps. I have abused so many fucking substance or tried to self medicate, I just don't give a shit. I've long given up living drug-free to be honest. If it's an antipsychotic that can maintain me, so be it. I just want to get by in this shithole and I honestly am more than happy if that can be managed. Being manic meant losing ability to perform so many tasks that usually were completely automated, hygiene, cooking, emptying the mailbox, just getting in touch with anyone on the outside. Nonetheless Quetiapine and Olanzapine are top-notch antipsychotic and if they help, then fuck whatever damage they could eventually do.
I was surprised there is very little information on increased cognitive performance during hypomania. Usually it says all these abilities are impaired on some level. I am still blown away by what I actually accomplished during those 6 months, even if half the day was spent in cataleptic freeze lol. I could have never done that without the "megalomania" lol. I had some of the best moments of my life during moments of greatest delusion (again, possessed by benevolent ancestral spirits lol) and met an unusually high number of very interesting people. Ultimately, I got out of it just fine eventhough it seemed I lost everything for a while there. I can't say I want to miss anything I experienced during the past year, eventhough it could definitely be viewed as the shittiest year so far lol.