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Showing posts from June, 2008

Pitch perfect description of mania

Re-reading Kay Redfield Jamison's "An Unquiet Mind" and was struck by how this description of mania was absolutely accurate and pitch-perfect, as if Dr. Jamison had conjured up the ghost of manic episode past as she wrote this passage: "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, and you follow them until you find better and brighter ones. Shyness goes, the right words and gestures are suddenly there, the power to captivate others a felt certainty. There are interests found in uninteresting people. Sensuality is pervasive and the desire to seduce and be seduced irresistible. Feelings of ease, intensity, power, well-being, financial omnipotence, and euphoria pervade one's marrow. But, somewhere, this changes. The fast ideas are far too fast, and there are far too many; overwhelming confusion replaces...