4 Ways to Deal with Embarrassing Manic Episodes

More thoughts on the management of bipolar disorder (which I barely manage). We all know a feature of bipolar disorder symptoms is mania. I want to write about curbing the embarrassment of mania, but if I'm honest, fuck if I know. I've never known how to properly deal with the embarrassment of a public manic episode. I've said and done things while manic that still haunt my amygdala like little pieces of a long-forgotten yet recent pasts, floating through my brain.

1) Act like it didn't happen? 

I don't know if this works or not to be honest. I don't even know how many weeks are in a year, let alone how to solve bigger questions like this. Mania explores the topics of the deepest darkest void of the intellectual or internet world and then comes out completely fuck-all nuts. My response is to walk around and act as though nothing in particular happened. Does this work with dealing with embarrassment? I have no idea. There aren't enough drugs on this planet to rid me of my memories, and this might actually be a good thing. We don't want to be lobotomized through life and a little bit of mania never hurt anyone more than the person suffering from it. 

2) Address it with close family and friends

If there's ever been a time I'm manic and it affected close family and friends, I've found it best to address it. The best close family and friends simply say, "it wasn't really you" and you feel a little sense of "thank God." There's not much else to do but address it and make amends almost like an alcoholic when things go off the rails. I'm not an alcoholic so I don't know about their exact measures for amends, but generally I apologize for my manic episodes. And some people don't even remember me running around in short shorts in the middle of winter and saying a bunch of expletives, so thank God for that. 

3) Be careful with social media 

This is just general advice I give to anyone with bipolar-but especially me. If your mind is moving at five million miles per hour already, social media is the last place to publish every single thought you might have, especially when you're manic. It's often just our closest family and friends that see our posts and often we're mad at our closest friends and family when we're manic, due to our paranoic delusions. I would say, to avoid, curb, or deal with potential embarrassment in the future to not post to social media in the midst of mania. That's information I learned the hard way and I'm sure lots of people with bipolar have learned as well. 

4) Do Something Calming for Yourself

Make yourself a nice dinner. Take yourself to the movies, go on a walk. And remember that you remember a lot more of your own subjective life on this planet than the people around you. Oftentimes people are focused on themselves, as is natural, and not on you and your manic episodes. You might remember a lot more than they do about embarrassing yourself and what you found embarrassing, they might not remember at all. Pour yourself a glass of redwine, have a small dinner, watch a TV show on your phone or elsewhere. Make sure you give yourself the grace and the kindness that you give to other people when they make mistakes. 

Welp, that's all I can think of from the void of my desk. I'm not going to write bipolar babes a bunch of long explanations of my many manic episodes and the dark embarrassment that colors my cheeks everytime I try to walk through my time. I don't go down memory lane that often, it's a lane that I've blocked off in my mind as I try ever harder to live in the present. Is this healthy? Who the fuck knows? It's just the way I gotta live. And we all gotta live, signing out of life is not an option. Not for me and not for bipolar babes reading this blog.

For some reason, we're stuck here. I'm stuck here writing. And you're out there stuck whatever you're doing. No, it's not a cabaret, life is not a cabaret, life is life. And it can suck ass sometimes. 

P.S. Check out these flowers.