[pavas]

>I think if this is mania, it’s controlled mania in a way?

That sounds like hypomania. If you're relatively smart it's like a superpower, but most medical professionals do not believe its something you can control.

I know nothing about you and you could very well have experienced a spiritual awakening, and if so I'm happy for you. From what you say a lot of this stuff sounds pretty recent; if you've lived like this without the heavy down periods for many years then it's likely not what I'm talking about.

I just wanted you to know that if it is mania or hypomania, in which case you will eventually come down, you'll be OK. You'll get through it and it's OK to get some help.

All the best to you.

[ThJ]

Some of the stuff on the hypomania page rings a bell, but I don’t think disinhibition requires testing and confronting your fears first. What I’m going through, behaviourally speaking, feels more like learning the actual vs believed limits of what I can do to affect my environment. It’s a bit like being a kid and testing borders with your parents to see how far you can take it and then gaining a little more confidence. I wait patiently to take the next step and plan things out and then execute them. Again, if I was feeling a loss of control and my behaviours made me dysfunctional, that would be the time to seek help. Instead, it would seem that I’m actually improving my life situation. The definition of mental illness isn’t symptoms but whether they are giving the patient issues interacting with their environment, and as far as I can see, I fail to satisfy that criterium.

It’s of relatively recent date, but thinking back on it, I’ve had vaguely similar experiences before. Difference is that there wasn’t the same bringing online of feelings and abilities. It wasn’t as powerful.