I have created a TSC Manic Depression Scale for myself today. Feel free to use it if it works for you.

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TSC Manic Depression Scale
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Range: -15 to +15

Detailed Range Meaning:

-15 : Severe Depression + Suicide Attempt

-14 : Severe Depression + Suicide Date Finalized

-13 : Severe Depression + Suicide Date Planning

-12 : Severe Depression + Suicide Method Planning

-11 : Severe Depression + Suicidal Ideation

-10 : Very Severe Depression

-9 : Severe Depression

-8 : Moderate Depression

-7 : Mild Depression

-6 : Very Sad

-5 : Sad

0 : Normal

+5 : Happy

+6 : Very Happy

+7 : Mild Mania

+8 : Moderate Mania

+9 : Severe Mania

+10 : Hypomania

+11 : Intense Hypomania

+12 : Very Intense Hypomania

+13 : Very Intense Hypomania + Slightly Detached from Reality

+14 : Very Intense Hypomania + Moderately Detached from Reality

+15 : Extreme Hypomania + Very Detached from Reality + Delirious


Notes: Zero is normal. Negative five to positive five are normal emotions, experienced by most of the population. Negative six and positive six are the initial stages of depression and mania. The scale is designed to manage and track key points in the manic depressive cycle in order to limit extreme high and low points. Furthermore, normal people may experience negative six and positive six at extreme points in their lives (such as a death in the family or winning the lottery). Severe positive or negative stress will cause normal people to break into the manic depressive orange and red zones depending on the circumstances.

Pretty manic today and I have to say I have been waiting for it for a while. I started getting really creative and always make a solid effort to say as little as possible around people, smile, and act normal.

My conversations with people are much more intense. I feel like there is electricity in my blood ... finally.

I'm pretty good at keeping calm though. In general I am a mellow person, but get a rapid heartbeat sometimes when manic and just convert my body language to be mellow.

On the rapid heartbeat note, I just remembered a funny story from back when I was in the military. In retrospect, I could see that I was probably getting very manic. I didn't really know what was going on back then. I just knew that my body was an odd type of machine. Sometimes I have electricity in my veins and a rapid heartbeat, but I just have to act normal. My reflexes are a bit heightened and sometimes I do well in this state in physically demanding environments.

I was unable to put up a façade, per se in the third phase of military training. As it was a special operations training program, my instructors were always trying to push us to the limit. They purchased heart rate monitors and had us all strap them to our chests. They said that this was in order to monitor our progress and physical limits according to hitting max heartbeat. Basically, they wanted to turn up the juice and have our muscles fail or come close to it.

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to be continued