In this article

Day one: getting a diagnosis Day two: mania Day three: depression

Day four: psychosis Day five: treatment

Day six: support Day seven: recovery

A better day, a few enthusiastic thoughts, and the anxiety sets in: am I going manic?

Different people have different experiences of mania. There is the milder end of the spectrum, or hypomania, then there is the full-blown mania.

When hypomanic, I have gone for long periods on little sleep, been enormously productive and filled in so much of my time with activity that I didn't need an easy chair to sit in at home because I never had time to sit in it.

I have concurrently held down a full-time job, been in the Territorial Army, practised martial arts, attended evening classes, been a union rep and still found time in my life for community activities. The trouble is that things don't stay like that.

To begin with, multitasking becomes easier, but then by the time I reach the stage of watching the television, listening to Radio 4, listening to music, reading a couple of websites and holding half a dozen online conversations all at the same time, it begins to sink in that I've lost my productivity and become chaotic and dysfunctional.

Mania creeps up on me like that. I become focused on the wrong things, like when I was producing an assignment on a postgraduate course and concentrated more on finding 14 different colours of paper for the different chapters than on finishing the text.

Then there's the shopping. I’m the sort of person who instinctively stocks up on the basics at intervals, and we all enjoy the odd bit of retail therapy, but the point at which I go to a supermarket with the intention of buying one loaf of bread and come out with five trolleys full of shopping, things have gone too far.

My mania can also be mixed with depression, giving me the negativity of the depression and the energy of the mania. It's so very easy in this state to do something I may regret.

My moods can also cycle very rapidly between mania and depression, which is very stressful and exhausting for me to live with, and I am sure difficult for those around me.

That isn't to say that there isn’t a positive side to mania. I have danced up the middle of the street with pure joy, and stared with wonder at a world that is so bright, so clear, so vivid.

But this is outweighed by the negative side of it. I exercise poor judgement in my decisions and my usual obsessive planning gives way to impulsiveness. I lack consideration for others and become angry. I'm sure that I am right and everyone else is wrong, and I’m going to make sure that they know it, because they are all so infuriatingly stupid.

Then there's the crash into depression, with a despair that I am not so capable and wonderful. I have made another mess of my life and now I have to live with the consequences. In my next entry, I'll tell you more about how depression affects me.