Manic Episode Quotes

Now, bipolar disorder, it goes on a spectrum. There's very severe conditions of it and there are milder ones. I'm lucky enough that it's reasonably mild in my case.

I guess the definition of a lunatic is a man surrounded by them.

I can't be normal. I'm probably bipolar.

I lost my father four years ago to what was the culmination of a manic episode that seemingly, to my family, came completely out of the blue after 59 years on this earth with no issues that we knew about, at least - sort of a normal run-of-the-mill guy who did his job and came home and had a family.

When my mood was high, I seemed normal, even buoyant. I felt smarter. I had secrets. I could see God in a light bulb.

I'm a lunatic.

There is a particular kind of pain, elation, loneliness, and terror involved in this kind of madness. When you're high it's tremendous. The ideas and feelings are fast and frequent like shooting stars....But, somewhere, this changes. The fast ideas are far too fast, and there are far too many; overwhelming confusion replaces clarity. Everything previously moving with the grain is now against-you are irritable, angry, frightened, uncontrollable....It will never end, for madness carves its own reality.

I knew I was a manic depressive when I was 13 or 14, and I loved it. I always told people what I had, and I was always cresting on a manic wave. I used it, willingly and happily, and it was an extraordinary experience. When I got hit with the depressive side - Boom! - yes, it was horrible and unendurable, but that's part of the story.

I went to a doctor and told him I felt normal on acid, that I was a light bulb in a world of moths. That is what the manic state is like.

I am bipolar, and I am a full manifestation of it in terms of my speech, in terms of my energy.

You know I've been called crazy.

I wrote 'Jungle' in my bedroom when I was having a manic time with a particular girl. Everyone thinks it's this really upbeat song, but it's not; it was just a really manic time, so I wrote a song about it.

Mania starts off fun, not sleeping for days, keeping company with your brain, which has become a wonderful computer, showing 24 TV channels all about you. That goes horribly wrong after awhile.

But then back on lithium and rotating on the planet at the same pace as everyone else, you find your credit is decimated, your mortification complete: mania is not a luxury one can easily afford. It is devastating to have the illness and aggravating to have to pay for medications, blood tests, and psychotherapy. They, at least, are partially deductible. But money spent while manic doesn't fit into the Internal Revenue Service concept of medical expense or business loss. So after mania, when most depressed, you're given excellent reason to be even more so.

Bipolar indicates that you're not - you don't just experience depression, but the mood swing goes up, and it can go very up.

My character in 'Running With Scissors' is manic-depressive. She starts out as a wonderfully eccentric person, and then descends into a terrible illness.

A mood disorder is dangerous. You've got to get those dramatic waves of highs and lows stabilized. It's dangerous if you don't.

Mania is a wonderful feeling.

I had cut myself off from everyone. I didn't come out of my room, forget stepping out of the house. I had a beard, and I didn't get a haircut for months. For someone who has performed in front of a crowd of 20,000, I was scared of facing 4-5 people. That's what bipolar disorder does to you.

Bipolar disorder is a scary disease, but it is manageable. And I feel blessed that I was able to get the right attention and the right medication to deal with my specific illness.

I go on benders where I just exercise like a maniac. And then I go on benders where I just can only take baths. Like, I have to lay down to bathe, and I could go on that for six months.

I spoke so much about being a manic-depressive. I want to bring everyone back to my earliest memories of this companion of mine. Some people call this companion I have an ailment, or worse a terrible nightmare from which some people cannot awaken. I know that I have nothing to be ashamed of. I have nothing that should garner a stigma.

I very classically would go into manic phases, which were as dangerous, if not more so, than the depressed phases, and I think I'd come up with the best ideas I ever had, and then the next day, I'd look at them and be like, 'This is nonsense,' because it was born out of a manic episode. What a waste of time.

There's childhood and early onset bipolar, but it transitions in your early adulthood into something a little bit different, and extremely severe. It was at that time that my impulse control just went out the window. Impulse control when you're manic just disappears.

A sense of electrical current was part of my own experience of being manic. The sensation that my mind was spinning and overheating would sometimes build to a sensation like an electrical short - a burst of light, a melting, or dissipating - and I'd get a metallic taste in my mouth, like when you lick a battery.