MANIA!

Mania. An interesting word. When you are manic it isn't very fun - to say the least. Many patients come into the Crisis Center with mania. They can't sit still, hate being who they are, feel uncomfortable in their own skin, and talk a million miles an hour for sometimes an hour! Could you imagine going through this on a constant basis? It is a living hell!

Being manic means your brain is working in hyper speed. Calculating this, seeing all the angles with that, at some point a crash is inevitable! What is the crash? Either huge depression to the point of being suicidal or severe panic!!!

How is this treated? Psychiatric medication is the key, though to many individuals they have convinced themselves through all the research they have taken that the psychiatric medication is harmful. Thanks Tom Cruise. Mania stems from problems with the Hypothalimus - the part of the brain that regulates cycles. When impaired through drug use, head injury, or heredity, it needs to be stablized. The only method we know that is effective is with psychiatric medication.

Many people feel if they eat a well balanced diet, take vitamin and herbal suppliments, get the proper exercise, and think good thoughts the mania will all go away. Well to be honest this can help greatly. But seriously how many of us are able to do so? And still the brain is impaired.

The biggest challenge for me as a therapist is convincing people medication will be benificial and it is okay to take it to stablize. For Diabetics they have to have medication or they will die. If psychiatric medication is seen as benificial a lot of untreated mental illness in this country will go away.

Please research the benefits versus the detriments on your own. There are plenty of web sites devoted to the pros and cons of psychiatric medication. All I can tell you is, if you are at your wits end and want to feel better I've seen miracles with psychiatric medicine.