Monster alert

[featherynscale]

Some days I'm too big for my body - I go around acting like I'm ten feet tall, bulletproof, and capable of breathing fire.

This is usually accompanied by an inability to shut the hell up, a certainty that if I think it's funny then everybody will think it's funny, and a tendency to make everything as much bigger than life as I am. On the good side, these are the days when I have really great stupid ideas and the power to enlist allies to carry them out, and I'm generally really productive, creative and useful. On the bad side, these are the days when I carry everything too far, violate boundaries (other people's and my own), and generally make a nuisance of myself.

So yeah. Some days, I'm too big for my body. Today, I'm too big for my cubicle. I'm trying to reel it in and reduce my presence to something that will at least fit in my car, but I'm not sure how well that's going. Anyway, be wary, there's a monster on the loose.

Yeah, I know this is mania, but that's an awfully diagnostic sort of word, and I try to avoid that sort of thing.

Comments

[kcwitch.livejournal.com]

LOL!! at least you will be ready to fight the monsters on sunday!! btw did my good deed last night. took eric shopping. i am and will forever be the reigning QUEEN OF SHOPPING!!

[digibri.livejournal.com]

A 20' tall rampaging Eris?
Sounds like a great idea to me.

B.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes, but I think it's been done.

[danniangel.livejournal.com]

Please, half the time I forget that I am 5'2 until I'm standing next to S or J at school (security guards, each about 6'6", and as wide as they are tall)

[liquidfun.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know this is mania, but that's an awfully diagnostic sort of word, and I try to avoid that sort of thing.

Heh ... I feel for you.

I've been told by a therapist I was "severely depressed", I've been told by friends and family I am everything from "delusional" to "manic-depressive" and most certainly "paranoid".

While I'll admit to having some tendencies in those directions, it is hard not to be depressed when everyone really is out to get you!

Seriously, though ... what you are describing is certainly symptoms of a manic condition, but it is only a problem if it interferes with your ability to live. Everybody has moods and states of mind, they're called "personality" and if people wouldn't worry as much about normalcy and shoving people into nearly labeled pigeonholes (oh, this one's histrionic, SHOVE) then the world would be a better place. At least, it would be full of more interesting people.

Sounds like you are already part way there, if you are avoiding diagnostic terms.

ASIDE: Speaking of interesting people, I loved the scene in Jurassic Park where the founder of the park says something like "Don't mind Ian, he has a deplorable excess of personality." I especially liked it because I had a friend named Ian with a deplorable excess of personality. Most people couldn't stand him, because he spoke his mind and wore boots with conchos along with his business suit. Great guy. Normal people are boring.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know. I have a degree in psychology, as hard as that may be to imagine. I'm not within the DSM-IV guidelines for mania, mainly because these episodes are not generally maladaptive. Even if I were within the guidelines, I have a physical condition that generally precludes being diagnosed with mood disorders. (In other words, the source of my chemical imbalances is somewhere other than the brain, so treating them as mental disorders is not the most efficient way of treating them.)

I do, however, have a deplorable excess of personality, (which is a fine phrase) but so what? People can either deal with me or they can't, just like with anybody else.