first hospital stay and question - re mania

My husband had his first hospital stay last week. To make a very long story short - basically he flipped out - took off for several days without medication and was extremely suisidal, aggetated and distressed with psychosis.He phoned up several times during that time absolutely beside himself and completely on the edge, he would not tell anyone where he was. He turned up here early hours one morning and I called the police and had him admitted to the psych hospital. This is the first time I have done this. It was the week from hell!

but as it has turned out it was the best thing I could have done as my husband is really trying to sort himself out and is making some lifestyle changes to help his illness. The most important of which is that he has realised he has to stop smoking pot ! he has enrolled in a drug rehab program and starts next week - YAY ! he has realised that he has to take charge of the illness and do some things to help himself (which he has never done) hooray a bit of a brake through. I dont want to get too excited too soon - but it is a very good start.

My reason for posting this is to ask a question re mania..... I am a bit confused because I read his discharge report which says that when he was admitted he was having a manic episode ??? this really confused me because I thought mania was meant to be a high ? like euphoric ? he was FAR from euphoric. Do people experience mania differnetly ? we have never seen the typical manic behaviour. Sometimes I see hypomanic behaviour- but generally it is aggetation, restlessness, unpredictable moods, extreme suiside thoughts, psychosis and MAJOR depression. He did not sleep in the 3 days he was gone and said his thoughts raced all over the place. he would switch from rage to tears in seconds and basically cried for 3 days straight- definely not what I would call a high !! best way to describe it would be he was completely on the edge !!!!

can anyone shed any light on this for us ?

would be much appreciated :0)

from your story, it sounds like he was definately in a 'manic' state. The 'racing thoughts' sticks out as a big clue. They may not be euphoric, sometimes they are very very happy, or very very angry, quite moody usually when nearing the possibility of veering into mania.

i hope this helps somewhat. someone else will probably ad to this or clarify.

Its a big worry for myself and family because from what i have read this is the most risky part of bipolar because in a mixed state the depression is soooo overwehlming and the mania and psychosis can make them follow through with the thoughts.

It really is the worst kind of way to feel, the mixed state and certainly hard to interact with the world, in a cohesive manner.

Regular sleep hours are the best thing. Chocolate and caffeine are really bad, I know, for those that are bipolar.