Excitement and Mania
Something about recovering from a hypomanic episode that I can't remember being talked about is how it's hard to trust yourself again after.
I was making my plans for today over breakfast, and got excited that I think I'm going to finally make it to the end of a long chore chain today. And I had to stop and reflect whether this was a healthy, normal excitement, remnant mania (chores, even the completion of, don't usually cause me joy), or normal excitement retriggering an episode (no idea if this is possible, but I would take great pains to minimize risk).
This morning, based on the speed of my thoughts and the fact I've seen everything I've started through to the end, I'm confident it was normal and healthy. But I have to second guess every elevated state for at least another week because, for me, the real risk comes from having an episode and not knowing it's happening, damage control has so far been simple for me if I'm able to reflect, but that requires a tremendous amount of vigilance.
And it's really hard to enjoy moments of genuine excitement if you have to constantly second guess your own mental state.
From the comments
James Petrosky:The task I'm going to get to is eliminating a box I've kept on the floor since April 2020 as overflow pantry storage. My apartment is shit and has no storage, so this has been the only option until now. Today I will
-sort through some more records, freeing up some living room shelf space -sort through stem ware to see if anything is worth saving or giving away, placing remainder in opened up space in living room -move food into space where stemware was -possibly rearrange kitchen gadgets to fit in remaining food -fill entire trunk of car with two weeks of donations
Is it realistically that much? No, but I no longer have a lot of energy so it's pretty ambitious for me
James Petrosky:Moving anything in this places cascades down several other levels of bullshit, but getting rid of a perminant floor clutter is a major victory that makes all future tasks have fewer cascades. Especially because everything in today's cascade is either getting a real home or getting donated.