I think of the manic side of the spectrum like drinking: at mild doses, pleasant; at high doses, difficult and usually undesirable; at extreme doses, you don't

I think of the manic side of the spectrum like drinking: at mild doses, pleasant; at high doses, difficult and usually undesirable; at extreme doses, you don't know who you are. Actual mania (not hypomania) is usually more unpleasant, from what I've seen. (I know quite a few people who've had it.) The stereotype is that the happy mania is the "normal" mania, but the anxious, angry, or psychotic versions are more common. I also think (although phren0logy is going to know a lot more about this than I do) that it's very rare for a person to have only the "happy" mania, unless you're talking about mild hypomania that might not even be classified as bipolar (I tend to think of BP as a spectrum and think that 10-20% of people are "on the spectrum", but that's not the same thing as having BP1 or BP2). I've only had one actual manic episode (almost a decade ago) and my current doctor's pretty confident that I wouldn't be classified as bipolar based on recent and current state... but the one manic episode that I had was awful and I'll never forget it. There were flashes of the "happy" mania, but it was mostly anger and anxiety, with not a small number of panic attacks.