“Re: Has Elon Musk Bipolar Disorder?”, Cravat2023-09-21 (bipolar)⁠:

I generally don’t like diagnosing people I don’t know. But even beyond that, bipolar usually involves swinging between mania and depression, with the mania usually uncommon and only happening for a few days at a time. AFAICT Musk has never been less manic than he is at baseline.

I’m very curious about this. I, unfortunately, have had several family members with untreated bipolar disorder. There is no “swinging between mania and depression.” Rather, they start to show signs of mania—less sleep, nervous energy, fast talking, elevated mood, less eating, planning and scheming, etc.—and over the course of the next several weeks these increase slowly. Then the delusions and paranoia begin, the amount of sleep drops to near 0, coherence erodes, they spend every penny they can get their hands on, they become agitated and sometimes violent at the slightest provocation. This continues and progresses for up to 3–4 months until they either completely collapse, you successfully get them into a hospital where they fill them full of drugs, they get arrested and the police get they are treated in custody, or some terrible accident occurs.

Is this an unusually severe version? It is the only “bipolar” that I am familiar with, and it is terrible.