

An Introduction to Cyclothymia - jakeonthemove
http://www.sebastianmarshall.com/an-introduction-to-cyclothymia

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joshuafcole
What Marshall's saying here is important. However, I don't think he said it as
well as he could have, or as well as the topic deserves. I go through similar
(if less extreme) cycles, and the depressive state can be debilitating. I
looked at this as a serious affliction and set about "curing" myself about a
year ago. I was ultimately successful after about a few months of concerted
effort, at which point I became mediocre and may have blown my chances at
moving directly to Stanford next year.

I've since reverted (because I couldn't take how bad I felt that I was
subjectively accomplishing so little), and am in the process of studying this
personality type to try and find a better answer. I think I'll draft an
analysis myself in response to Marshall's and submit it if it comes out
decently.

Out of curiosity (and to satisfy my hopeful hunch), are there many other HN
users with behavioral patterns like this? I'm hoping to find similarly
impassioned individuals on my way out towards Palo Alto/Stanford.

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thiagofm
Hell of a useless wall of text.

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Mz
I can't get through the whole piece at the moment. (My apologies to Sebastian
and others.) I have my own issue: Atypical Cystic Fibrosis. This is associated
with heat issues (people with CF are often warm-natured, though I was always
cold-natured until I got my anemia under control). Anecdotally, there is an
association between genetic disorders and high IQ. There is also an
association between high IQ and various issues, like ADD, ADHD, OCD and a few
others. The association is strong enough that some people refer to such issues
as "co-morbidities" of very high IQ (presumably for lack of a better term and
also to indicate that high IQ can and does frequently come with a host of
issues and is not all upside).

FWIW: When I was very, very ill and in a lot of pain and on all kinds of
drugs, I did all kinds of crap I would never do "while in my right mind".
Although I have no reason to believe I am manic-depressive, I do experiences
crashes of a sort because I have physical limitations and simply run out of
energy. Getting myself fundamentally healthier has take a lot of the edge off
my emotional reactivity, reduced the depths of crashes, and made productive
times more grounded, saner, healthier, more sustainable experiences.

I am off to piddle around with a game. Again, my apologies for not myself
being in good enough shape to really do this topic justice. I am posting
anyway in large part because HN moves extremely fast, so if I don't do it now,
the opportunity will be lost, likely before I am up to doing the topic
justice.

Peace.

