Mania Haikus: Using the Heightened Creativity to Process My Episode

This is Part 2 in a 5-Part Series: 

"When the World is Too Bright: An Intensive View of Mania from On the Ground"

(Read Part 1 Here)

I recently came across the poetry of Nayyirah Waheed. I follow her on Instagram and she posts beautiful, bite-sized poetry. Reading her work makes me want to write poetry, too.

At the beginning of the month (September 2016), I felt the stirrings of mania. There were no spending sprees, nor hypersexuality, or racing thoughts. Those are my typical symptoms. This time I only noticed two changes: disturbances in my sleep and heightened creativity and productivity.

When I was manic in 2015, I incorporated a life coaching company and a social justice curricular consulting company. I was so excited to go into business for myself. I mean, why not? I had all these great ideas until the mania dissipated. After I came down in 2015, I spent months recovering and settling back into my homeostasis. The two businesses were the last things on my mind.

Yet here I find myself, in September 2016, dusting off the life coaching company and developing curricula for workshop presentations. For the first week of September 2016, I feverishly researched and wrote, and consulted, and designed. At first, I thought it was normal creative frenzy, but when I didn’t sleep one night, I knew I was teetering into familiar territory. Mania is defined by excess. I was doing too much.

Here are five haikus I wrote to process the mania.

I

Spano excited.
Just like Spano? Yup, Jessie.*
#ManiaBeLike

*Jessie Spano from Saved By The Bell

II

Wrote a business plan.

Conducted a survey too:

self-care consulting.

III

I’m intentional

about self-care coping skills.

Sleep. Breathe. Eat. Shower.

IV

Be in the moment.

Try to calm the energy.

Breathe, breathe, breathe deeply.

V

Sleep escapes me, {sigh}.

Too many creative thoughts.

Can I just press “pause”?

Tune in tomorrow for part three in the series...