So, my trigger for noticing I’m heading into a newtype up state is I have the urge to clean

It’s kind of cliche to be a domestic tornado in manic (or methed) phases but this isn’t that intensity, it’s like all my senses sharpen so I notice grime more, and I’m just like “oh, I can resolve four months of buildup with 25-minute Procedure A”, and then I just do, and after that I either move on to a Procedure B for something else, or settle down to something timewastey for like 15 minutes until I get a sense that this isn’t as satisfying as something with longer-term payoff.

As far as I can tell this is just how well-adjusted normies keep their house clean. Huh.

Also less weight on chance the late Feb fatigue w/muted taste & smell was early asymptomatic COVID, I think that’s just a major presentation of my down periods now - tiredness w/muted senses.

I think part of why I lose weight in baseline/above periods now is the sensory sensitivity means the feeling of fat on the body is more noticeable and sends a stronger signal against eating. I could see this being a hook for problematically disordered eating so I consciously keep an eye on at least maintaining a reasonable calorie and macronutrient intake. Honestly I should also keep an eye on setting limits in down periods when this signal’s muted.

I should not drink liquor like this. Maybe beer? The effect feels muted, I’m not seeing the disinhibition I usually enjoy (maybe I’m just less inhibited to begin with). Muscle tone and coordination (including the tongue) seems to be an early loss where I’m used to balance being a tell in that role, and mental clarity doesn’t even start to dim. The alcohol’s role now feels more mild stimulant than depressant, instead of drinking into submission I keep myself awake.

I do become more social, and socially well-received (or getting that sense in a self-reinforcing cycle from confidence) and that’s nice but the thing that really worries me, especially in combination, is I go on autopilot a lot more.

Like, I was drinking at home last week, and “lost” 0045-0425 and thought I had just fallen asleep on the couch but it turns out no I reconnected with an old friend and wrote to my mom about what re-setting this engagement diamond she wants to pass on like an heirloom would involve.

And I look at the transcripts when I got follow ups later and I’m perfectly spelled, witty, breezy, definitely “my voice”, apparently well-received and not at all try-hard, none of the brusqueness or yammering of my classic drunk texts, and I have NO MEMORY OF THIS

Even stuff I’m aware of, months back when bars were still a thing I’d be talking to some girl, but I wasn’t working up some conscious model in my head, just responding to each line with the next that immediately came into my head, no thought, and end up basically picking them up without ever deciding to try to.

Also, Instead of lacking the motivation to go to sleep in down periods and mind-racing wired insomnia in up, now my sleep/wake cycles reflex from like 8 up/12 down to 26 up/3 down/4 up/3 down, but feel like cozy well-functioning normal days where you go to bed comfortably drowsy and wake up rested, just ones impossible to sync with the solar cycle

In general the effect is more fluffy and instinctively social than sharp and consciously mental, it’s like my brain started making its own cocaine instead of its own meth. The whole experience is a lot more pleasant but I fear less productive, productively leveraging it in my life would involve shifting towards less thinking and more schmoozing.