How To Execute A Manic Character [Character Guide]

HOW TO EXECUTE MANIC CHARACTERS

This guide is less about making it a personality trait in your character's profile, and more about executing it in a post when writing out scenes with characters who undergo mania. So below I'll cover the execution methods you can possibly take depending on how you want to execute it. And remember, they aren't mutually exclusive. That means you can mix them together if you want. I also feel I have a bit of authority to speak on it since I've had some of these symptoms myself when I've felt my own highs. So take it with a grain of salt.

Execution

Decreased Sleep: One of the first ways to execute a manic episode is possibly going over the lack of sleep that a character has had. When a person is having mania, they feel as if they have a non-stop feeling of full energy. It is not uncommon for them to even go days without sleep. This can lead to jittery movements, bags under their eyes, shaky speech, cluttered thoughts and them feeling as if they are an unstoppable machine. And, when taken on the supernatural scale, it would not be uncommon for some characters to go weeks or months without sleep.

Elevated Mood: When you are manic, it's also not uncommon to be filled with a high sense of happiness. It's like there is a strong warmth inside of you and you can barely withhold it all. You usually start the day and you have a strong sense of giddiness about everything and that nothing can really bring you down. It's like you have an extra pep in your step with every thought, movement and action you take.

Grandoise Levels Of Self-Esteem: When you are under a strong manic spell, it's very easy for you to believe grandiose things about yourself. In fact, your levels of confidence reach to such heightened levels that you feel like you can more or less take on the world or do anything your god given mind sets out to do. Which means it's not uncommon for characters under manic spells to embark on super ambitious goals, tackling subjects they have little knowledge in or otherwise having grandiose delusions such as believing themselves to be godly or having the ability to do anything.

Excessive Ego: While undergoing a manic episode, it's not uncommon for you to exaggerate your abilities or outright believe that you are better than everyone else around you. They could believe they are a better fighter, writer, intellect or whatever else have you then even the greatest masters of that art. Some may even outright claim skills that they do not possess in order to further fuel their ego or make themselves believe things that are untrue or delusional to get lost in that high.

Increased/Non-Stop Speech: When you are undergoing a manic episode, some feel that they can pretty much talk to anyone under the sun. So it's not uncommon for them to talk fastly, non-stop and change subjects rather quickly as your attention span can be a fickle thing when undergoing this state. You can go from talking about politics, to history, to the way you felt last week about some shitty blog article you read and so on and so forth. So don't be afraid to mix up dialogue or have your character talk differently than they normally would.

Recklessness: This is one of the more major signs of a manic episode. The reason for this is that people who feel a strong sense of mania will often make reckless decisions. Some do this without thinking about it, others believe that nothing can harm them and they can do whatever they want and others simply have poor judgment and unwarranted optimism because of how skewed their state of mind becomes in these states. This leads to them making rash business investments, increased sexual behavior, doing mass spending sprees or taking un-needed or dangerous risk. So it wouldn't be uncommon for a character to take a chance at taking on an army or two if they were really feleing the blood within themselves boiling because everything will be alright in the end.

Increased Sexual Desire: While this may have been touched on briefly in other traits, I feel this really needs to have its own section. When you are undergoing a strong high, it's not uncommon to feel an intense sexual urge swelling within yourself. You'll either feel the need to masturbate excessively, seek out multiple sexual partners, undergo odd sexual stimuli or do whatever to get that sexual rush to make you feel good. It will almost feel uncontrollable to a degree, but you won't care when you are high. [Why do you think Mana is so flirtatious in her manic states?]

Increased Creative Thought: You have a million ideas and one when you are having a manic phase. In some people they find that they are at their peak of creative thought when they have their mania and often create their best works of art or create a ton of content for the world to indulge in.

Irritable: As the mania intensifies, so to can irritability arise in a person when they are under a manic spell. This can result in acts of violence, hostile behavior or they can become belligerent. Even just walking down the street trying to take a walk can result in you becoming irritated because people are effectively in your space, they are too loud, too many idiots in one place and so on. Throw a character with supernatural powers in, and it's possible they can attack on a whim. I even used to struggle with this myself personally when I was younger until I used meditation to get it under control.

Thrilling: There is no need to treat this condition in the mind of those who undergo mania. From the first time you have that high, you feel as though you need it in order to function at your best. This is why many people with the condition choose to skip taking their medication because this state of mind feels euphoric and whole. So it would not be uncommon for a character to feel distressed if they were unable to activate one of their highs and feel lost without it. [Even I personally look back at my success and feel like another person took control of me when I have my own manic spells once my low slips in.]

Activating Manic States: While I personally do not like using the word "trigger" (it's so overused and overblown these days it has lost it's meaning and I hate it), this is a term that needs to be used when describing various things that can activate a manic state. Extreme stress, little sleep, drugs/alcohol, overstimulation, season changes, a new job, social conflict and other random event may trigger a manic episode to occur. So you can tailor and customize this to your character needs depending on what you want to have trigger them. [Heck, I felt a bit of manic feeling recalling some of these traits myself. Like a warmth in my chest]