You have your life figured out. You can see your way forward with blazing, intoxicating clarity, and you feel peaceful, happy, and connected. You become incredibly productive, and watch with astonished joy as you cross item after item off your to-do and bucket lists. Everything, and every conversation, is interesting and vibrant; the spiritual pulse of the world is tangible, and you rejoice in it.
Any insecurity you've felt completely melts away, or at the very least, you are able to see -- to finally see -- how to move beyond your pain. This, too, is a marvelous feeling, and you begin to see that you are fully capable and entitled to do anything you want to. You think it's time to make up for opportunities you've missed because you've held yourself back, and the mere thought of wandering off to pursue whatever fun or adventure or danger, even, that presents itself to you is explosively exciting.
And then a potential consequence of one of these notions goes flitting through your consciousness. And it enrages you. How DARE anything or anybody tell you what to do? How DARE anyone or anything try to hold you back? You are consumed with anger and aggression, and fantasies of unrelenting violence, cherished with atavistic, heart-pounding excitement, race through your mind. You stomp on the accelerator, shout at the asshole in the right lane, flip off the teenager crossing the street. Your guilt and anger and confusion begin to mount, and everything is getting really frightening and out of control. You aren't sure how you got so upset, or why tears are streaming down your face, or why your heart is pounding in your chest, or why you just snapped at the people riding in the car with you.
You finally realize you are being utterly driven by mania, and you collapse under its weight, reduced to a sad, scared, confused little puddle.
