As some of you may know, I cleared my schedule over Jan and Feb to completely overhaul my mcmanweb site. Once I got Phase I out of the way, I was able to get a life and go about Phases II and III during my normal (ha!) business hours. Last week, this involved scrapping my old articles on the diagnostic issues involving bipolar and replacing them with new ones.

One new article involved mania. I was in the middle of crossing one of my T’s when suddenly I had one of those knock-me-over-with-a-feather moments: In the more than five years I have been associated with BipolarConnect, never - I repeat never - have I posted a piece on mania.

That’s one rather huge omission. Okay, I’m going to make up for that right now. This is the beginning of a new series, but instead of calling it mania I’m going to call it “Up.” Discussing mania makes no sense without discussing the rest of up, which also includes hypomania, exuberance, feeling good, and even feeling less depressed than before. Discussing up, in the meantime, forces us to look at “down,” and the two together compel us to look at everything in between, including our states of wellness.

This approach is crucial because bipolar is essentially a cycling illness. Our brains are in perpetual motion. In an ideal world, we would be treating the cycle rather than the episode, regulating the steam that turns the wheel rather than applying brakes to the wheel.

But look at episodes we must. So why don’t we start by dispelling five myths about mania?

Myth one: We all love our manic episodes.

Wrong. Way wrong. And it’s surprising how often our doctors buy into this myth. Anyone who has been through mania is terrified at the thought of another one. The reality is most of us are willing to accept miserable half-lives as over-medicated zombies, if that’s what it takes to avoid a repeat of the living nightmare that probably left us without a job to go back to, or much worse. Mania is all about losing control of our brains, which includes our ability to reason and control our impulses. Nothing good ever comes out of these situations.

Myth two: But nevertheless, while you’re in mania, it’s the most incredible high in the world.

Only if you think jumping out of a plane without a parachute is fun. Things can turn terrifying very fast when events spin out of control. Way too much is happening way too fast, and the world is far from a friendly place.

Myth three: But people are elated when manic.

Maybe some people are. These are your “classic” or “pure” manias that we call “euphoric.” But the reality is that euphoric has a way of turning dysphoric. These are your “mixed” states, mania symptoms mixed with depression symptoms. In my book, “Living Well with Depression and Bipolar Disorder,” I describe it this way:

If one thinks of pure mania as the music of Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong on a cool clear summer night, mixed mania is heavy metal and rap in a thunderstorm ...