This post originated in a comment I posted about a strange and unpleasant experience I had when pushing myself too hard mentally. People seemed interested in hearing about it, so I sat down to write. In the process, however, it became something rather different (and a great deal longer) than what I originally intended. The incident referred to in the above comment was a case of manic focus gone wrong; but the truth is, often in my life it's gone incredibly right. I've gotten myself into some pretty strange headspaces, but through discipline and quick thinking I have often been able to turn them to my advantage and put them to good use.

Part 1, then, lays out a sort of cognitive history, focusing on the more extreme states I've been in. Part 2 continues the narrative; this is where I began to learn to ride them out and make them work for me. Part 3 is the incident in question: where I overstepped myself and suffered the consequences.

Some of you, however, may want to skip ahead to part 4 (unless you find my autobiographical writings interesting as a case study). There, I've written a proposal for a series of posts about how to effectively use the full spectrum of somatic and cognitive states to one's advantage. I have vacillated for a long time about this, for reasons that will be discussed below, but I decided that if I was already laying this much on the line, I might as well take it a step further. Read if you will; and if you're interested, please say so.

Part 1: My cognitive background

Let's start with full disclosure: there is madness in my family. My father was an alcoholic; it was clear to all of us that he also had some other psychological issues, but I never fully learned the details. My sister has been variously diagnosed with depression, bipolar, borderline personality disorder, etc, and has a breakdown about three or four times a year. My brother is also bipolar. He's had two manic episodes so far; he became psychotic during the first one, and both times he's been hospitalized. And then there's me: the sane, dependable one.

That's what I thought, anyway, until my brother had his first episode and I started to look back on my own history. I'd always regarded myself as rather unusual, certainly, but basically stable. But seeing full-blown psychosis for the fi...

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