Mania. It's a well-known term that sets aside bipolar disorder from depression. We've all heard the term 'manic depression' but what exactly is mania? And has it always been what we know it as today?
Short answer: a great feeling of euphoria, and no.
Long answer: well, let's take a ride for this one.
Modern mania (also known as a manic episode) is marked by inflated self-esteem, decrease need for sleep (not to be confused with inability to sleep), excessive talkativeness (outside of the person's normal range), being flighty and having racing thoughts, shortened attention span, increased focus on goals, psychomotor agitation, and excessive involvement in pleasurable activities that have a high potential for painful consequences (noted by extreme risk-taking). So in average-day terms, the person is in a big mish-mosh of risk-taking, goal-oriented activities, and distractibility.
But that wasn't always the description of mania.
Mania is actually one of the oldest diagnoses in the medical and psychiatric world. Mania was once marked as eruptive, inchoate violence, meaning that the person would suddenly and for no reason at all become violent. You've heard "there's a method to the madness", well in classical mania there is no method to the madness. It just happens out of nowhere with seemingly no thought process.
Nowadays, such eruptive and violent outbreaks are referred to as psychotic breaks, leaving mania to describe the euphoric feeling associated in both types of bipolar disorders (yes, there are two types).
Want to hear more about this? Check out my video coming to Odyssey soon!