My delusions are subtle and deceptive, but I know now that I am delusional when I start to believe that there is a kind of magical property to things, and that somehow I have the key to that. When I was in youth development I came to believe that teaching life skills was something more along the lines of direct transmission as is practiced in spiritual circles like Nepalese Shamanism and what not. I also have had this belief in the kind of magical powers of my concentration. Like, I could hold an idea in my attention over extremely protracted periods of time and thereby make it manifest. I believe that I am kind of super human, like I have this ability to simply will things into existence. When I start thinking in these ways I know that I am delusional though I don't know how to stop it.

It's like the whole world takes on this kind of riddle like quality, like if I just think hard enough about it I can solve it. The thing is that I am not always manic, but I still basically feel this way, and I kind of don't entertain the idea that things are not possible. Also, things that are clearly possible bore me. I come up with broad, fantastical plans, even when I am not manic, and then when I am manic things really escalate. It is a blessing and a curse, because I actually do some of these things. I don't have psychotic mania, so I never believe truly impossible things, just extremely unlikely things that don't really acknowledge limitation. I can really burn people out. And I get really burned out and there are big crashes. But when I am on top, it can be really triumphant.

Like I run this thing, and I let someone else run it for a year, and their plan, was just so boring, so uninspired, and everyone is just bored and uninspired, and finally nothing is happening. So I took it back over, and I am running it, and immediately I have this bizarre far flung plan that relates only tangentially to the mission, but that is really compelling that gets people really excited, and that gets everyone working and what not. The thing is, that is great, but I get really wrapped up in it, things will get really crazy, so I have to be careful. I don't ever know where that line is before I've already crossed it.

The other kind of mania I have is negative and paranoid. Believing that people are kind of conspiring against me, really just that people are against me, that they think I am a silly stupid person and that they take pleasure in manipulating and deceiving me. This is almost CERTAINLY not the case, but I can get this into my mind and start building stratagems for counteracting this. Sometimes I'll confront someone about it and they're like "what?!" and I immediately see how crazy I am being. Literally last night I was going to tell someone that I didn't feel good around them and that I didn't feel like I was with someone who liked me when I was with them and that I did not want to have a relationship because of this, and instead I just chatted with them a while, and it turns out that they are so happy to see me, and love and value me so much, and I am so happy that we are friends, and I am SO crazy!

Then there is what I call 'black mania' which is when I end up writhing around punching myself in the face chanting that I want to kill myself. That hasn't happened in a while.

Ugh...
That was a bit of a rant... I am hypomanic right now for sure...
:-/
Soon...
MT