If you did the research you would find that many famous artists and poets had mania. It is the fuel, which feeds the obsessive drive to work for 15 hours straight or more on masterpieces. I can forget myself in a shop, ignoring the time, not drinking or eating in lieu of perfecting whatever piece I may be working on. I have come to actually look forward to these chaotic moments that wreck havoc to the serenity of the mind because of the heightened productivity that travels with them.
I have used both ends of the spectrum to my advantage in art and poetry. So even the depressions that plagued my younger years brought forth many soul-wrenching writings, which could touch even the hardest heart. In literature's history many a poem has sprung from a tormented mind in depressive spasms of self-loathing. I am not the only poet to do so and I am in good company. Some of the most famous of writers suffered as such. Without the release, which poetry and art provide, frustrated emotions can send even the brightest minds into deep depression or can internalize and manifest in physical maladies.
I no longer am subject to the complete extremes at the lower end of the emotions any more. I can recognize when my emotional well being is dipping and the rationalization begins in my subconscious automatically. "Physician: Heal thyself," and all that. And if that is being slow, then I find a distraction to occupy my mind and detour any further plummeting into the depths of the abyss. It doesn't mean that "I can't remember when", nor does it mean I am not able to write about it. No, my memory is quite vivid and explicite when it comes to those morbid days of angst. I tell my children that I was "Goth" before they had a name for it. All I know is that I never feel like everything is hopeless any more or that suicide is an acceptable escape from any problem.