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[–] JigglySackles@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Tell me you have no idea what mania feels like without telling me. It's not some amazing super power. It sucks. It's destructive. And it's not some "part of the brain" to tap into with limitless energy. Your body has limited energy and mania spends it one way or another, almost always to your own detriment.

If you want to stay up late and do shit drink some caffeine or go get a cocaine habit and quit treating people's affliction like your new hobby of getting things done with this one weird trick.

I know you probably don't mean anything by this but I still can't help but say fuck you. Mania sucks and fuck you for treating it like some happy fun time tool to be used so you can clean your room or whatever the fuck.

[–] fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

Coke. The bad news you either go broke trying to paying for the new addiction trying to post pone the required depressive state or worse you do find it by what is normally progressive more unethical work (crack whore, drug dealer, enforcer, b2b sales, wall street analysts, CEO, etc).

[–] cheezyweezle@lemmy.today 49 points 3 days ago (1 children)

That's not how any of that works. Mania does not come from some special "mania center" in the brain. It occurs from many parts of the brain not working correctly. There is no "part of the brain" to access here.

[–] AnarchoEngineer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

“From the brain” is basically like saying from this impenetrable black box.

Medications do not work the same on people with the same conditions. You could have exactly the same depression/anxiety symptoms as another person but have a completely negative reaction to an SSRI that works perfectly for them.

Some people with ADHD can still get high on certain stimulant meds if they take a high dose, but some (like me) don’t get anything but a headache.

For most people, drinking alcohol is a slightly euphoric experience that decreases inhibitions and makes them feel relaxed. For others (like me) it does nothing or it makes me anxious.

Now the physical effects do exist in that latter case; my heartrate and breathing do slow if I drink a lot. But the subjective experience is quite the opposite of what its “supposed” to be.

If you want to feel physically alert, injecting yourself with epinephrine would likely do the trick. But if you want to feel more “manic” as in lacking impulse control, feeling rapid emotional changes, and feeling alert. You likely need a cocktail of drugs specifically tuned for your brain.

There is no single part of the brain controlling anything. I mean literally anything. There are lots of areas that are involved with certain actions like the hippocampus with memory and V1 with visual input but there are basically no processes that are comtrolled solely by a specific part of the brain.

And what makes it even more complex is that every part of the brain is recieving different information from thousands of different neurons scattered across the whole neocortex. Some of these connections seem to follow a general trend, but if you’ve ever seen a rabies tracing experiment you’ll know that basically every part of the brain has at least one or two connections from any other part of the brain regardless of function.

Your brain is a chaotic mess and what little organization exists might not even be necessary. There are mice called Reeler Mice who lack a specific glycoprotein (reelin) which is responsible for organizing the brain into layers. As such, their neurons are scattered all around rather than forming the neat layers and patches that typical mice have. Guess what is wrong with these mice behaviorally? Nothing. apart from the motor issues caused by an undeveloped cerebellum (part of your brain that coordinates muscle movements) they are basically normal mice. (I should note there is some research on reelin levels and relation to psychiatric disorders, but its not well studied and inconclusive)

You could have a completely different brain than any other human on earth and still function like a normal human. There are people without a corpus collosum (the largest white matter tract in the brain, connecting both hemispheres) who are asymptomatic even though most people with the condition get seizures. There are parts of your brain that might not exist in others like the massa intermedia; and there are no signs whatsoever until you do a scan.

It is likely your brain is laid out in a unique way that is unlike any other human. Maybe it can carry out processes and emotions and actions the exact same way someone else’s does, but that does not mean both brains are doing that process in the same way. So it is never guaranteed that a drug or stimulation in a specific area which causes the desired effects on one person will cause the same effect on another.

And the more complex the desired outcome is (e.g. “mania” rather than just “alertness”) the less general your “solution” will be, meaning it will need to be tailored to each subject more specifically.

[–] webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 6 points 2 days ago

This is the biological intro to understanding neurodivergent theory.

I have tried to explain this very thing so often, you put it into words so much better then i ever have. Thank you!

[–] lIlIlIlIlIlIl@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)
[–] Apytele@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I mean yeah almost anybody can have a drug induced manic / psychotic episode (usually from stimulants), the threshold and how long it takes to get there and the eventual severity are just different for each person. Technically it's supposed to be a different diagnostic classification if it's drug induced vs organic but realistically psychiatrists will just slap 'schizoaffective' on pretty much any chart and call it a day.

As for inducing an episode... So what makes a mental health diagnosis a mental health diagnosis vs a normal neuro/behavioral variation is literally detriment / impairment to everyday living. So if you're inducing one you're accepting that even with, say, a hypomanic episode, there's some kind of detriment. Usually the main one is that the person becomes a huuuge asshole, but there's other stuff that can still even get the person committed, usually after royally fucking up their life and relationships.

Now, some people need that little extra dopamine for their brain to work right (ADHD). They're also risking mania / psychosis when taking stimulants but the risk is usually minimal at the doses they're taking and it's worth it for them to be able to hold down a job and keep up with self care tasks. You wouldn't want to risk it otherwise and there's a small subset of people with ADHD who are much more prone to mania / psychosis that can't take stimulants at all who have to take very specific combinations of other stuff.

TLDR everything has risks and benefits and that's such a narrow tightrope to walk for no reason and "what if I just microdose" are the famous last words of literally every meth addict ever.

[–] gibmiser@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

You like playing games with fire do ya?

[–] CombatWombat@feddit.online 4 points 3 days ago

Yeah, and you probably have. All sorts of people have the kinds of experiences manic people report -- staying up late into the night to work on something creative, feeling at one with the universe, feeling powerful or unstoppable, having deeply moving religious or spiritual experiences, being extremely irritable or angry. But eventually you are able to stop and return to a baseline state when the negative consequences grow too intense, instead of spiraling out of control for weeks or months, which is the crucial difference.

[–] Mrs_deWinter@feddit.org 2 points 3 days ago

Provided there aren’t too many protective factors you could maybe trigger it with a few years of amphetamine abuse and a few traumatic experiences. /s

No, seriously. Bipolar disorder is not a good thing. Triggering mania most certainly would come with a hefty dose of debilitating depression as a side effect.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 0 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

not normally, maybe from drugs you can, but you will have abnormal withdrawl effects. isnt thats why amphetamines are for and thier pharmalogical deratives. i dont think you can have manic phase with drugs though. because manic phase from bpd, usually comes with severe depression, some people have psychosis, or a co-condition like schizophrenia. i once followed a tuber that had manic and depressive phases, apparently the reason he was barely uploading was his "depression phase" followed by his manic phases, (uploading about his cotent which was very sparingly. after a few years, it was reported in the local news, and through another tuber, he took his own life in his depressive phase. it was mostly about pets/talking,not anything extreme.