Joshua Thorin Messer

So I’ve noticed recently that I actually do have a sort of manic episode to complement my basically constant deep, sinking depression. I say a sort because I’ve always equated the term manic with a very energetic physical sort of activity. This is all very vague and undeveloped in my mind, but I suppose I imagined folks suffering through their manic phase as somehow running about like loonies, jumping up and down, or perhaps engaging in carpentry. That sort of thing.

I’m sure this is pretty inaccurate. But at any rate, I was lying in bed at 2:00am the other night (six months ago when I was a restaurant server I would just be hitting my stride at that hour, but since I got a real job staying up past 11:00pm has become a rarity) after three and a half hours of struggle. My mind had been racing since I hit the pillow around 11. I can’t remember now what it was so important to think about, but this kind of thing used to be relatively common with me. I’d actually go to bed before I was tired and just kind of decompress. I called it thinking. Weird.

Now, it’s different. I’ll be dead-ass tired, barely able to drag myself to the bed, until the moment the light goes out. Oh, I’ll still be completely exhausted, but my mind races. Not necessarily in a useful manner. And not really in a stressful or worried way either. I suppose my brain just wants some time to itself, without the damn internet and television and 5 million books and magazines and radio overloading it.

But lying still, unable to summon the energy even to open my eyes, just doesn’t synch up with my perception of a manic episode. So what the hell do I call it?