The Symptoms
Hypomania is defined as having an elevated, irritated mood with the following symptoms:
• Pressured speech
• Decreased Need for sleep
• Flight of Ideas
• Racing Thoughts
• Distractibility
• Psychomotor Agitation
• Grandiosity
• Involvement in Risk Seeking behaviors
The Manic Self
Mania can be understood as the flip side of depression. Individuals with hypomanic personalities have an essentially depressive organization- but it is counteracted by denial. When their denial fails, their depression tends to surface, which creates a bipolar organization.
The hypomanic individual is overtly cheerful, highly social, work obsessed, flirtatious and articulate while covertly feels guilty about his or her aggression toward others, their inability to be alone, and their difficulty in loving others with empathy. The hypomanic is elated, self-promoting, energetic, witty, and grandiose.
Individuals with a hypomanic personality are famous for racing thoughts, large-scale schemes, and seeming freedom from the sleep and food that everyone else needs. They are constantly “up”. They are often great entertainers and storytellers, with many comics like Lenny Bruce or Robin Williams appearing to have hypomanic personalities with their unrelenting wit. Manic people are a treasure to their friends because of how much high-energy excitement they have, but they can often be hard to get to know on a deeper emotional level as they turn everything serious into a joke. Their constantly being “on” can feel inauthentic at times, and friends often feel a need to distance themselves after prolonged periods of exposure to manic individuals.
Like their depressive counterparts, manic individuals tend to be “oral”, as they talk non-stop, smoke incessantly, drink recklessly, chew gum, and bite their nails. They are in perpetual motion, which suggests a considerable anxiety despite their often “happy” mood. While happiness is familiar for the manic person, a calmness or serenity is an emotional state completely outside of their experience.
Denial and Acting Out
The core defenses of hypomanic and manic people are acting out and denial. With respect to denial, they have a tendency to ignore or turn into humor events that would distress most other people. They may also escape from painful experiences by acting out through intoxication, provoking others, sexualization, and thrill seeking. In fact, anything that distracts the manic person is preferable to feeling depressed.
As a result, the self-esteem in people with a manic structure may be maintained, however tenuously by avoiding pain and captivating others. Many manic individuals are masters at attaching other people to themselves emotionally without giving reciprocal care and nurturance.
Early Childhood Loss and Trauma
In the early histories of manic individuals, even more so than for depressives, one often finds a pattern of repeated traumatic separations with the child having no opportunity to process these losses emotionally. Criticism, physical abuse, and emotional deprivation are also common in the childhoods of manic and hypomanic individuals. Early childhood losses such as traumatic separations, mistreatment, and emotional neglect for this population are often extreme, and they cannot “slow down” long enough to feel the depression just beneath the surface.
If you are interested in psychodynamic therapy or counseling in the Newport Beach, Irvine, or Orange County area, please contact Jennifer De Francisco, MPA, MSW, LCSW at (949) 251-8797.
