Mania doesn’t knock.
It breaks in like a lover returning home—familiar, thrilling, dangerous.
At first, it feels like freedom.
Like finally waking up after a long, bitter sleep.
Everything glows. Ideas sparkle. Words come fast and brilliant and unstoppable. The world opens, and I belong to it—fully, loudly, electrically.
I remember the first signs like a private ritual: the sudden clarity, the surge of confidence, the need to move, create, connect. I felt beautiful. Invincible. Divine. I danced with words. I flirted with strangers. I planned empires in the middle of the night. I thought I could save the world.
And for a while, the world agreed.
People called it passion. Drive. Charisma.
“You’re glowing,” they said.
“You’re on fire.”
And I was.
But mania is a trickster.
It flatters you first—then it devours you.
What began as brilliance became chaos. My thoughts turned into static. My speech unraveled into nonsense. I couldn’t stop talking. Couldn’t stop moving. I trusted too easily. Spent too recklessly. Loved too intensely. I didn’t sleep. I didn’t eat. I didn’t pause.
It felt like being possessed by a version of myself I couldn’t contain—a self made of light and speed and fire.
But even fire burns.
The crash always came.
And when it did, it left wreckage.
Apologies I didn’t know how to make.
Texts I couldn’t remember sending.
Relationships singed at the edges.
Dreams turned to ash.
After the mania came shame—the deep, cold kind. The kind that lives in your marrow. I’d wake up and find myself in the ruins of my own life, wondering, What have I done? Who was I? Can I undo it?
You try to explain it, but how do you explain a version of yourself that felt real when it wasn’t? How do you ask for forgiveness for things your illness made you believe were love, or brilliance, or necessity?
Mania doesn’t care about consequences.
But I do.
And I have to live with them.
Over time, I’ve learned to feel the warning signs—the push behind my eyes, the electricity in my chest, the way the world starts to speed up around me.
Now, I pause.
Now, I reach out.
Now, I have a plan.
It doesn’t mean I always catch it.
But I know it now.
I name it.
I don’t confuse it for magic anymore.
Mania is not my muse.
It is not my genius.
It is not my light.
It is an illness.
And I am not powerless.
I have burned before.
But now—I carry water.
I carry truth.
I carry boundaries.
And I no longer mistake the fire for flight.
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