Mania Made Me -- Surfing The Emotional Waves Like a Surfer (By Mr. Nathan Lasher)

(Disclaimer: The guest posts do not necessarily align with Philosocom's manager, Mr. Tomasio Rubinshtein's beliefs, thoughts, or feelings. The point of guest posts is to allow a wide range of narratives from a wide range of people. To apply for a guest post of your own, please send your request to mrtomasio@philosocom.com)

(Subcategory on Emotions)

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Table of Contents

1. Article Outline (By Mr. Tomasio Rubinshtein)

2. "Mania Made Me" (By Mr. Nathan Lasher)

3. Conclusion (By Mr. Tomasio Rubinshtein)

Part I: Article Outline

Key Themes and Arguments

Mr. Nathan Lasher's article explores the relationship between genius, mental illness, and bipolar disorder, drawing from the author's personal experiences with unipolar mania. Several key themes emerge:

1. The Complexities of Bipolar Disorder: N. Lasher challenges the traditional understanding of bipolar disorder, arguing for the inclusion of hyperthymia and unipolar mania as distinct diagnoses. He emphasizes the importance of individualizing treatment approaches based on the specific manifestations of the disorder.

   
   

2. The Role of Emotions in Mania: Emotions are central to the author's understanding of mania. He suggests that mania is essentially an amplification of emotions, and therefore, managing emotions is crucial for controlling manic episodes.

   
   

3. The Potential Benefits of Mania: The author suggests that mania can have positive aspects, such as heightened creativity and intellectual giftedness. He believes that harnessing these qualities can lead to significant achievements, capable of helping this world.

   
   

4. The Importance of Intelligence and Human Capital: N. Lasher's article highlights the role of intelligence in understanding and navigating the complexities of life. Additionally, he emphasizes the value of human capital, defined as the sum of one's skills, experiences, and the ability to learn and adapt accordingly to reality.

Part II: The Article, "Mania Made Me"

Introduction

I don’t refer to mania made me in any criminal defense kind of way. What I mean is it has literally shaped the person I am today. I have bi-polar disorder, but only in a rare expression kind of way. Unipolar mania primarily expressed as hyperthymia... means I cycle the lower ranges of mania which results in nothing more than my temperament being altered.

This project's purpose is to theorize the relationship between genius and mental illness but more specifically bi-polar. Genius characteristics include racing thoughts and thinking big. Wouldn’t it be fair to assume that geniuses have access to mania, yet possess the proper cognitive features to process it? Perhaps, that is with bi-polar being the result of not inheriting those proper cognitive features.

Looking Both Ways On Emotions

Mania can be responsible for great and terrible things at the same time. In my opinion it all comes down to the person’s true nature being revealed when they are exposed to mania.

In my particular case, I was raised in a christian household so good morals were given to me at a young age. Theology aside, I find religion to be a huge joke. Does it really matter who is right about where we come from or what happens after we die or what will happen at the end of the world? Due to intelligence's rarity, human nature keeps us bound to our primal instincts, which result in us being our own worst enemies.

How many of the world’s conflicts are a result of humans being too emotional by nature? More specifically, it is problematic as to how quickly emotions can cause humans to react. Emotions were meant to increase the quality of life, so, why do so many let anger or sadness dictate their response to things? It's as if the emotion creates an effective mental state reality of its own where a particular emotion is seen as a real thing.

The N. Lasherian Approach to Mania

So before continuing I would like to state for the objective record an objective vantage of what mania really is. Nothing more than the amplification of our emotions. On the one hand, who wouldn’t like to experience emotions more intensely? As my emotional quotient has my emotions in almost complete control all that bi-polar can impact is my temperament. 

It is this realization that makes me believe hyperthymia and unipolar mania are definable things which should be included in the DSM manuals. My opinion on the matter is that they should be defined in the manual’s as a diagnosable thing but not a mental illness.

Esoteric Mania Reflections -- A Hidden Corner

What I have is not bi-polar per say but a closely related cousin. Due to these terms not being in the manuals, doctors don’t have a clue about the characteristics of it.

I merely believe I wouldn’t have had to spend over a year of self diagnosing when having it as part of the dsm manuals would have made diagnosing so much easier. In terms of treatment I believe the proper course of action is in making individuals afflicted with such things, understand their condition fully.

It also makes me realize I could play a vital part in bi-polar research as I can act as mania research without risking triggering an episode or depression. Thanks to my baseline being a few notches past neutral I primarily exist in a mild mania state but as it is a causality of bi-polar it’s obvious that the mania possesses the ability to go higher.

For relativity’s sake I feel my mania in higher levels falls somewhere south of cyclothymic mania.

Within The Core of the Social Theatre

A few disclosures about my experience with mania has to do with masking and how mania is expressed in lower levels. As mania’s start within the body is the same regardless of the destination level shouldn’t mild constant mania be the focus of research? I mean regardless of mania level doesn’t it all start the same within the body. 

My reasoning for stating this is a rather useful masking technique I’ve unknowingly developed over the last 36 years. When mania can be heard in my voice I am able to settle it down and make it go away. A technique I learned in cross country 20 years ago is focused on calming your heart rate and breathing. To me mania feels along the lines of when you're out in the sun all day and later that night your skin feels like it is radiating heat. That is what mania feels like to me. When I calm my breathing down that warm little feeling returns to the place from which it comes, the heart.

Emotions and the Heart -- An Unexpected Theory

Applying this realization to a few other polymathic thoughts, I theorize mania is a heart condition which is the result of too many neurotransmitters in your blood system. 

I'm not a doctor or scientist so my understanding of physiology and psychology is limited to a few courses back in college. However, would this not be a way to explain mixed episodes? What if the neurotransmitters for mania and depression were released into our blood at the same time?

The Value of Researching Eccentric Minds

I believe I have dreamt up a way to monetize being me. Just me working on this project has real value in bi-polar research. My keeping my mania from fully exploding and resulting in emotional burnout could be priceless information on how it might help other people.

Riding out an emotion instead of letting it consume me is what gives me another idea on suggestions for bi-polar management. Instead of trying to stop the mania, doctors should focus on getting it into a manageable level which you can use to understand the mania better. With more control over your emotions all bi-polar can do, as I mentioned, is alter your temperament. 

My life has many experiences so I pretty much have 36 years of bi-polar research tucked away inside my head. I’m not sure what kind of research it is when you want to study yourself. I’m not sure if clinical applies to me as I don’t need to observe other people to understand something.

Regarding The World of the Intellect

Now, This next part did have its place in me understanding bi-polar more. I realize now that my insights are what might advance bi-polar research years. I possess a pretty great level of intelligence. Not caring about it in any superiority kind of way but rather in awe. I want to use it to do some really cool stuff. To me, intelligence is a thing which people have never really learned to understand. 

Intelligence is nothing more than a characteristic of the conscious mind or soul. The thing which gives us life and tells our bodies how to properly function via the subconscious minds' network. Intelligence is that thing which makes the body work properly using nothing more than the innate characteristics of our bodies.

Those processes which are a part of our genetic code such as what tells our bodies to breath and the heart to pump blood. It would take an innate degree of intelligence for your body to know to do everything it is supposed to. Furthermore, intelligence is our innate ability to understand. It is what lets us learn and apply what we learn to our lives. Your intelligence determines the degree with which you can understand things.

Look at doctors for instance. They would have to possess some higher degree of intelligence to understand something as complex as the human body and mind.

Why Humanity is Limited by Default

Regardless I find myself at a standstill because I’ve been trying to find a person as intellectually gifted as I am. Even my psychiatrist's intelligence is limited by his education. Through happenstance I’ve gained the ability to sense and discern intelligence making it really entertaining to come across individuals who are pseudo intellectuals who came across as prideful.

It is clear to me that people’s intelligence limit their ability to grasp certain things. Their thinking is limited to what they read in a book. The world’s intelligence is the result of nothing more than passing around the same genetics. 

Not trying to sound like a dictator or egomaniacal person... but it has been proven that intelligence is attributed to genetics. If you take one average individual and they procreate with another average individual then odds are they will have a child with average intellectual genetics. Intelligence is what allows you to maximize your experience of things.

Excessiveness Versus Moderation

Moving along to circle back to mania. Heightened emotions can lead to heightened physiological features. Alertness and your brain firing faster than normal. I believe the cure to bi-polar falls in controlling your emotions. Mania can’t lead to episodes when you control how much emotion you feel. Importance of self awareness and dealing with things which stir up emotions. Emotions should not control us but rather be something we use to our advantage.

Controlling the amount of mania you feel is nothing more than controlling the amount of emotion that you feel. To my original point about mania made me. I cycle between hyperthymia and euthymia (Normal state). Realizing that emotions are what causes mania to increase it only seems logical to me that mania is the result of too many neurotransmitters (emotional chemicals in the brain and blood) being released. 

You realize a great lesson when you assess how mania behaves in smaller levels. Not only the ability to understand its origin but in that depression’s level is determined by the amount of mania you feel. A negative correlation. You went 6/10 into mania so you will go 6/10 into depression as it is your body's way of trying to balance out. That and it gets to the point where your body has produced too many neurotransmitters and the opposite of it will happen to try and balance itself out and return to normal.

Being in this euphoric state the mania will still occasionally stir which due to my body not being in mania can come across as discomfort or irritability. So, typically, my projects remain incomplete as it is about this point where my adhd/mania burnout occurs. I’m working on a system to avoid this.

Mania As But A Tool

The too far ahead part is part of the burnout. Why do I want to do the tedious task of doing nothing but putting down what I’ve already gone over in my mind? So, we use this time to learn how to best utilize the mania. 

Mania can lead to your brain performing at a higher level due to increases in chemical levels. In simple terms it is like your body is performing at a higher level because of them. Increases in neural activity resulting in racing thoughts. I stopped trying to keep up with them but enjoyed the instantaneousness of my thoughts.

Find yourself an activity that brings about mild emotions. If you can’t think of anything, all you have to do is pick an object and apply an emotion to it by thinking about what it means to you. This mild emotional technique will let you learn to handle mania at smaller levels. It is also realizing this that you see mania is the same in smaller amounts as it is in larger.

During a manic episode you are literally too emotional. This is the problem with bi-polar thoughts during them. It isn’t that they are good ideas. It’s this justified grandiosity that makes me realize what the actual danger is during times of mania. It is literally feeling good about a thought. When you feel good about something you are more inclined to do it.

Control the impulsivity and apply this time towards creative projects. Nobody said you needed to stop what’s a part of your genetics. What you need to do is learn to understand it and use it to your advantage. Those great ideas should be compiled into a file for potential future projects. Bi-polar possesses the ability to get you to think about things differently. The problem with this is the impulsivity that accompanies it. If you can resist doing things while dealing with too much mania. Try using the time in your life to get creative with thoughts. Start by thinking about a part of your life and ways you could perform them better. 

A Guide For The Bi-Polar

My point here is you should use the time to create content and use your euthymic times to actually plan out how you can make it happen. Doing this you will also want to confide in a close personal friend or family member. Utilize them to determine the value of your ideas. See if they are a good idea to someone else. In the causality of my life, in terms of genetics, I find that mania might have made me but in understanding the existence of my genetics I can learn to use them to my own advantage.

So, my advice is to make a list of problems or tasks and next time you have those creative good ideas. Use that time to think about your list. You never know what solutions you might come up with which end up being a good idea. 

Mania and the Power of Change and Influence

Mania has created a very rare unique situation in which I determine my future. Projecting what else it has made me find that I’m a natural born spy. Due to my temperament shifting I never developed just one personality of my own. Like multiple personalities, from shifting temperaments, except they are more like costumes in a changing room which I can choose from to meet whatever my needs are.

Due to my personality changing so much from the emotional complexity of puberty, and a super early onset of mania, I take ambiversion to a whole new level. When you discover that your personality can be used to control other people you have an awareness that with great power comes great responsibility. If not for my upbringing, accompanied by some brain injuries, I find myself torn as to how to feel about this...

Wishes For the Future

Even that was south of hypomanic but high relative to what it normally is. It is this that makes me think there might be value to the typical expression it has. If anything, due to not dealing with depression, I find myself thinking I might make a good guinea pig in determining better ways to deal with mania. 

I also futuristically want to develop customized help plans for people on how they might better deal with their own mania. To not get rid of the mania all together but put it at a more manageable level is the secret I believe. In a manageable level that you can use to your advantage. Mania is nothing more than another tool my brain can use and I’m in the research phase of putting it to productive uses. 

Conclusion by Mr. Tomasio Rubinshtein

"Mania Made Me" offers a unique perspective on bipolar disorder. Lasher's piece highlights the complexities of the condition and the potential for personal growth and success, not despite the disorder, but with its usage.

Although further research might be needed to confirm Mr. Lasher's claims, his insights can contribute to a broader understanding of mental illness, as more than just a burden, and inspire innovative approaches to treatment and survival in this world. Also, the article teaches us that we can turn a liability into an asset.