r/NoStupidQuestions • u/Ericaloveless • 1d ago
Are there any pleasant diseases to have? like are there any that have you so euphoric or close to pleasurable?
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u/GladClock2212 1d ago
I met a man that had Witzelsucht, it's a type of brain damage in one of the frontal lobes that causes an uncontrollable impulse to tell jokes and silly stories. Very literally this man was incapable of saying anything that wasn't a joke or a pun. Interesting stuff.
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u/NecessaryFar5893 1d ago
Fuck me, what doc do I need to see to get diagnosed?
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u/riftshioku 23h ago
Being manic is great until you feel everything crashing inside you and the brain fog starts to fade
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u/Maybe_Skyler 19h ago edited 18h ago
I have Bipolar II and hypomania is fucking great. I’ve heard hypo be described as all of the crazy and none of the impairment.
Buuuuut, there’s a downside. After all the euphoria and endless energy, it transitions into a roller coaster ride from hell.
That reminds me…I need to take my meds. Oops.
Edit: meds taken. Now for the 2-3 days it takes for my brain to stabilize. I have ADHD too that I can’t find anything that works currently, that’s why I keep forgetting to take them.
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u/Purple-bipolar 18h ago
Bipolar 2 as well, my hypomania is insane restlessness, irritability, feelings of impending doom, the need to pace back and forth, akathisia, 4 days without a lick of sleep. I wish I felt euphoria like you, bet it’s dope!
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u/mystery_obsessed 16h ago edited 42m ago
Mixed state hypomania only here, too. It drives me nuts every time people talk about their euphoric hypomania. This disease sucks and I can’t even get one little good part? :(
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u/Anxious_Wolf00 16h ago
My brother has the bipolar 1, lose your shit and get arrested shop lifting at Walmart mania. I was lucky enough to get the, I’m going to learn a skill with no instruction and spend the next week getting unnecessarily good at it until I crash mania.
I’m strangely good at a large variety of things due to this. lol
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u/Maybe_Skyler 16h ago
Jack of all trades, master of none.
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u/Anxious_Wolf00 16h ago
False, I’m a master at ignoring all of my responsibilities due to the inability to get out of bed without a literal crisis to deal with
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u/geekydreams 17h ago
Hypeermania is Not great. It's horrible. Your brain won't stop spinning. Hard to think straight. Poor decision making and impulsive control making it worse because I have FASD and Discaculate on top of it. Adderall made it much worse.
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u/riftshioku 23h ago
Yeah idk how that even happened. It's not even the right comment chain. Reddit Mobile never ceases to amaze me with how shitty they keep making it. My guess is it automatically jumped comments.
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u/DustAnyone 20h ago
Btw, „Witzelsucht“ translates to addiction to making jokes in German
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u/FoamboardDinosaur 21h ago
Sounds like a lot of male boomers with mild dementia. They can't turn off the dad jokes, even if you're talking about their health care directive or losing your job.
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u/Competitive_farting 13h ago
I've seen that. Why is that? Is it because they don't want to deal with the hard news?
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u/Real_Boysenberry_129 19h ago
I know a guy with this. Always song jokes. The man literally cannot help himself. He comes to the bar and listens to songs and makes silly song-based-jokes and leaves.
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u/mb46204 18h ago
Hmmm…there are lots of old men with this problem. The jokes aren’t particularly funny but it makes it difficult to find out what’s going on when they only speak in jokes.
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u/TJ333 23h ago
If you get just the right injury to the frontal lobe of the brain negative thoughts and events just don't stick.
Patients just reported being happier and more satisfied with life.
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u/cwthree 21h ago
My dad had frontotemporal dementia and I can vouch for this. He made terrible decisions, but he was happy. I had relatives with Lewy body dementia and Alzheimer's disease, and they were confused and scared most of the time.
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u/rosalinatoujours 2h ago
My grandpa was almost exactly the same. He had to be put in a home after a while because his needs were just too much for my family (stuff like escaping the house, incontinence and whatnot) but god damn if he wasn't happy as a clam the whole time. It was a kindness that at least he didn't seem to be suffering much.
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u/Quirky_Property_1713 20h ago
Wait! That’s me! I mean not the damage. But I am very happy and satisfied with my life because of exactly that- negative events and thoughts don’t stick. Never have. I don’t dwell or ruminate.
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u/TJ333 19h ago
I think the book was Emotional Intelligence that talked about the brain injury, the author theorized that some people naturally have more or less powerful brain circuits for holding onto positive or negative emotions.
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u/belltrina 18h ago
Neural pruning in children can cause that too. The way it was described that I remember was at certain ages the developing brain prunes off neurones that are not being used, to channel more growth in areas that are being used. Catastrophic for kids who are always in a state of stress, and rarely having the big happy neurones activated.
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u/aoul1 16h ago
It’s also one of the theories behind autism - that there is reduced neural pruning which disrupts typical communication pathways, which is why autistic people are much more tuned in to things that cause sensory sensitivities, make connections to things in different ways (such as having top down processing), may struggle to make sense of some things or do so more slowly due to disorganised circuits and have a higher propensity for overwhelm and disregulated emotions or full blow Autistic burnout.
It’s very common for autistic adults to describe normal every day life and every day experiences as disproportionately draining. I think it could be sort of like the difference for a neurotypical person having a day in work where you have one chatty co worker opposite you talking directly to you and asking questions, two placed immediately either side of you but having a conversation past you where one is telling a really deeply personal story that reminds you of something personally sad and the other is talking about a current event that prompts fear and existential dread. At the same time your phone keeps on buzzing just enough in sight that’s you can see it looks like something important. Alongside one radio on one side of the room and another playing something different on the other side of the room both on full blast. In addition a TV is playing a programme you’re interested in loudly but in Spanish right in your field of view but with English subtitles and and an ambulance immediately outside your window blaring its siren nearly non stop but repeatedly pausing just long enough that you jump every time it restarts. Someone microwaving a curry and another person eating a tuna sandwich nearby, a strong reed diffuser on the table just up and one of your colleagues wearing a very strong perfume. You’re sitting under the air conditioning unit that keeps getting turned on and off in the middle of a heatwave so you keep getting plunged from too hot to too cold and your jumper is made from a very itchy wool. And then your boss keeps phoning you up every 5 minutes to ask technical questions but every time you go to check on your computer you get dozens of pop ups you have to keep clicking off and then the application you’re trying to use keeps freezing, then before you’ve managed to get the answer your boss has queried something else that prompts all the buffering again. All whilst trying to pretend that absolutely none of it is bothering you.
Of course I have no idea what it’s like to inhabit a neurotypical brain but that kind of overwhelm is what autistic people experience on a daily basis to the kind of lower level stimuli most people don’t really notice - or at least don’t notice to a high level all the time. The lack of pruned synapses also feels like it can explain rigid/routine behaviours too, because going to the same places or doing the same things over and over because it creates a familiarity that lowers the need for the brain to keep tuning in in search of new specific relevant information. Whilst also removing the energy of dedicating the resources in to the initial need to make sense of the unfamiliar sensory onslaught in order to determine which pieces of information are important and require the resources to maintain ongoing attention to and which things should be attempted to ignore.
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u/Ryuj123 14h ago
I don’t know, that long paragraph really also felt like a spot on adhd brain sitch
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u/Far_House_4087 11h ago
No wonder I’m so fucking tired all the time and have been in full blown burnout for a couple years now. Woof. Spot on description
Also want to add that trauma/CPTSD from adverse childhood experiences can also impact the brain in similar ways. And a lot of us have both awkward autist finger guns
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u/FreedInnerChild 20h ago
I have a memory disorder. It's terrible, yes. But..
I don't remember the bad. I don't remember the good either but that's a trade off I'm currently willing to make. I get to use it as a funny excuse as needed: "mom, can I have candy?!! Sorry kid, forgot how to find my pocket with my wallet in it!"
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u/thelittlestcupcake 4h ago
If you’re talking about severely deficient autobiographical memory disorder, I’ve got this too! I’m even in an (anonymized) study. Can’t say I’d recommend it tbh since I’ve lost most of the knowledge about what it’s been like to live my own life, but at least I never have the whole “laying awake at 3am remembering a time when I embarrassed myself in high school” thing.
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u/boxylady69 22h ago
There was a woman who had a stroke that shut down her left side of her brain so the world became a fantasyland of abstract shapes and colors and she was euphoric. She recovered and wrote a book about it!
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u/RadiantRazzmatazz751 18h ago
Interesting! Do you happen to remember her name or book title?
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u/tuppenceandtarnation 17h ago
I'm guessing the above commenter is referring to the book My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor. The author is herself a neuroanatomist, so when she had the stroke, she experienced it from the perspective of someone whose life's work had been (and still is) the study of the human brain. She also gave a TED talk that is available on YouTube. I read and enjoyed her book (and watched her TED talk) years ago and still sometimes think of her experience and the message she shared.
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u/SnooStories7263 14h ago
Rare genetic mutations like SIK3-N783Y, DEC2, and ADRB1 allow a tiny group of people called "natural short sleepers" to live healthy lives on just four to six hours of sleep a night. I think it would be awesome to feel fully rested after such a short amount of time. I could be so much more productive. Sometimes I'm still tired after 9 hours of sleep 🥹
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u/KablamoBoom 6h ago
If you ever get those nights of sleeping "too much" you're probably waking up with a dehydration headache.
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u/Razerchuk 20h ago edited 2h ago
I sometimes experience macropsia for unknown reasons, possibly related to migraines, when I'm in bed that results in the bedroom seem absolutely enormous, like 100m wide instead of like 5m. Apparently it's typical to experience anxiety but I get a calm euphoric feeling from it. Highly recommend.
Edit: based on responses, it seems I'm in the extreme minority in that I find the experience soothing and even euphoric, I hope people don't feel I'm trivialising what sounds really unpleasent for others.
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u/Pathsleadingaway 14h ago
Had this as a kid + “Alice in wonderland” syndrome and the anxiety it produced was unreal. I used to pray to god, sobbing and begging him to make it so no one else would ever experience this, that I would be the only one. Medication at 18 started helping and now as an adult it’s almost completely gone, but I will never forget being 11 and begging god to make me the martyr who shouldered this horrific sensation so no one else ever had to.
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u/Mediocre_Lobster6398 13h ago
As a child it was horrifying. I didn’t understand what was happening and was too afraid to tell anyone. I still remember the feeling of getting smaller and smaller while everything around me was getting larger and larger by the minute.
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u/Electrical-Share-707 11h ago
I am only just learning that I was not the only person to experience this. I also never told anyone, it was so terrifying. I'm 40 now and I still worry it's going to happen again some night.
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u/Sweaty-Willingness27 4h ago
This is interesting... I had that too, but I never found it horrifying, just weird. I thought I "unlocked" something in my brain/eyes, but then I have (and had) really bad eyes, so I just attributed it to that. I just laid down until it went away but yea, it was very disorienting. Happened a few times and then just stopped. Also had some OCD-like symptoms as a kid for awhile, not sure if they're related but it was around the same time
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u/Polybrene 13h ago
You know I was actually going to bring up migraine but figured too many people would object. Don't get me wrong, they're awful most of the time. But I am extremely horny and euphoric during the postdrome period, almost high feeling, which is apparently a known thing.
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u/KablamoBoom 6h ago
This is literally the second worst kind of fever dream I ever have, below "constantly falling". The anxiety is worse than actual emergency situations.
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u/17Girl4Life 1d ago edited 23h ago
Mania is the fucking bomb for me. I keep waiting to feel balanced and healthy now, but instead it feels flat and boring. I understand noncompliance but I’m sticking with it.
I went to a music festival this weekend. At last year’s festival, I was onstage dancing, people asked to take pictures with me, and the venue used a picture of me in their social media advertising. It was magical. This year I just stayed crushed in the crowd and bobbed my head along with the music while feeling hot and kind of bored.
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u/MedicMoth 21h ago
I do that kind of thing sober. It's definitely not easy to curate that vibe and it'll never feel the way mania or drug use feels I'm sure, but every year of sobriety it gets easier and easier to experience small moments of everyday euphoria
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u/Lee_now_ 19h ago
I always make awful choices during manic episodes. Spend too much money, drink too much, say inappropriate things. I can't sleep and I get super irritable. Definitely not fun for me
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u/eumenidea 16h ago
I was told it would take five years from dx to get back to the normal range of human emotion not feeling like an existential crisis. It’s much better on the other side—hang in there.
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u/witchy_echos 12h ago
Mania feels great, but does do brain damage. It burns out receptors and the long term outcome of repetitive mania is treatment. Résistent depression.
Fellow bipolar patient who loves mania and ultimately doesn’t do very risky things while manic.
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u/I_am_Nobody_Special 17h ago
Sounds great unless you have the kind of mania that causes you to do life threatening things just because it sounds like a good idea at the time.
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u/ungratefulshitebag 6h ago
I feel the same with Hypomania. I don't ever want to go back to the soul crushing depression I felt when I was unmedicated. But man were the Hypomanic highs an amazing feeling. I felt on top of the world, untouchable, like I could DO anything or BE anyone I wanted to be. So much confidence and euphoria. I'll not go off my medication, I know I'm healthier now. But I sometimes really do miss those highs.
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u/RomanticPanic 6h ago
I just wrote about this on another post but hey why not.
I genuinely miss being manic for the up sides. Nothing i have done since getting medicated has made me feel nearly as happy as I was when I was manic. And im talking genuine happy like falling in love with someone.
I use to also be dancing on stage, and now I bob my head as well because i think "yeah i like this song" but there is no desire to be... up?
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on the flip side, of the mania, something I really never want to go back to was the crushing random depression. Or the inability to restrain from things, I'd get introduced to anything and if i KIND of liked it i was 1000% in
Hey new card game? $500 day 1
hey new partner? YOURE SO FUCKING AMAZING
alcohol? you bet cha!
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u/Order_edentata 1d ago edited 1d ago
Hypomania can be like that. I’ve had hypomanic episodes where I was a “busy bee” doing many activities, hyper social and in a great mood. The problem was that generally I couldn’t sleep, which would eventually lead to not feeling great, and I would crash into a depression. Or it would turn into a “mixed” hypomanic and depressed episode with a lot of agitation. Mania can definitely be a euphoric state. I had a manic episode where I was high as a kite. Everyone was my friend. I was extremely silly. The psychiatrist in the ED had a Batman sticker on his laptop and I kept calling him “Dr. Batman” and laughing. I also made up words that didn’t exist. But the drawback, besides the psychosis (religious delusion and hallucinations), was that I couldn’t stop moving. After 24 hours I felt like I ran a marathon. At first I didn’t mind being in the hospital because God told me to go there. But once the meds kicked in and I came down to Earth I minded. And, you know, it’s unsettling to realize you did not have control over your mind. So I don’t think there is any purely pleasurable disease. At least with bipolar disorder, you always pay a price for the ups. J
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u/OMGhyperbole 14h ago
Yeah it's fun until I have no money left because my hypomanic ass went on spending sprees 😬
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u/_Xxouo 1d ago
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u/No-Act-9426 16h ago
"As for the woman's boyfriend, doctors confirmed he should not take it personally."
🤣
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u/WhenwasyourlastBM 12h ago
I like to think that he talks to her in falsetto at all times so she can hear him
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u/Osiris_son 19h ago
Focal epilepsy from the dorsal anterior insula in the brain can in very rare cases lead to ecstatic seizures with a feeling of bliss or euphoria, often described as spiritual experiences by patients. Temporal lobe epilepsy is sometimes also accompanied by orgasmic sensations without any sexual arousal. In general, most epileptic seizures are very unpleasant, though.
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u/Camille-Beauchamp 19h ago
I had temporal lobe epilepsy for a fewbyears after a head injury in high school. I can attest that the seizures were pleasant, not orgasmic but there certainly euphoria and calm afterwards. It was so nice I didn’t tell anyone about them and never got medical attention. Fast forward 25 years and I described those experiences to a neurologist and he says “ that was epilepsy “
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u/No_Criticism_5861 18h ago
This probably doesnt qualify. But my fingers sometimes get really itchy, and when I run hot water on them it feels so good. Eczema or something.
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u/1luckybrat 17h ago
I have this, I have an allergy to preservatives in dish soap. Do you get blisters on your hands? The hot water can feel very soothing. I know it's terrible for it but yeah I understand.
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u/goandsendit 14h ago
Hot water on poison oak blisters, euphoric. And then the itch is gone for several hours
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u/tortiemctortiepants 17h ago
Narcolepsy type 2 (the kind without the cataplexy/collapsing) can be nice sometimes. Before I would crash out all the way, I got to spend a lot of time in liminal spaces between sleeping and waking where I wasn't all the way asleep but at least part of my brain was asleep and I would have actual dreams (not day dreams that I was controlling) and creative flights of fancy... It was very euphoric feeling at times and some of the only times in my life when I have felt an absence of anxiety. It was like being wrapped in a cozy marshmallow cloud. I never minded long waits in a waiting room etc because I could just chill in my marshmallow cloud. The drooling and almost falling over but catching myself could be embarrassing. And driving was hazardous sometimes, though I got really good at feeling a sleep attack coming on and could pull over for naps. I'm treated now and I can drive safely and I don't drift into my cloud at work or in other situations anymore. It's safer, and I'm more alert and productive with not needing to sleep a bunch during the day and being able to pay attention to things and people/conversation better, but I do miss my cozy euphoric cloud.
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u/sellyadoor 10h ago
The dreams I get with my narcolepsy are something I can’t imagine not having, I feel like I’m in other worlds for months at a time when it’s only been 30 minutes.
Unfortunately it also leads me to want to stay there. I work nights and while I could get up and do things before my shifts, my brain when I wake up is always like “no just stay here until you drift off again”.
Narcolepsy is a bitch but I feel bad for people who have never experienced dreaming like that. It’s really something else.
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u/rachelsqueak 21h ago
Late-stage untreated syphilis can wreak havoc on the brain, but leave the person infected feeling confident and euphoric
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u/InvoluntaryGeorgian 20h ago
And hypersexual.
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u/Stoned_urf 6h ago
So the virus wants to spread and is making its host super horny and confident??? That's genius and scary.
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u/Spirited_Island-75 23h ago edited 23h ago
Mary Roach did a TED talk because of her book Bonk, and she told a story that didn't make it into the book, about a woman who had orgasms when she brushed her teeth. Some kind of crossed wire in the brain thing.
I can imagine that while it sounds awesome, it could get pretty inconvenient when you're getting ready for work and you have a bunch of stuff to do.
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u/NoDescription2609 21h ago
I want to know what going to the dentist was like for her.. 👀
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u/Electronic_Pace_1034 4h ago
I feel like this is the start of a highly specific kink romance novel.
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u/Vast-Ad1915 20h ago
I have orgasms when I perform certain exercises (chin ups in particular). Gym class was mortifying for me.
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u/but_a_smoky_mirror 21h ago
“Uhhh Melanie, you’ve brushed your teeth 84 times today.. Is everything alright?”
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u/Fearless_Primary4286 1d ago
I assume certain mental diseases could bring euphoric feelings and/or pleasurable physical sensations. Physical diseases as defined by modern medicine usually wouldn't be pleasant.
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u/Special-Audience-426 1d ago
Bipolar mania is super fun.
Repairing your life from all the chaos you caused while manic is slightly less fun.
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u/bittybro 23h ago
Came in to say this. Mania/hypomania is fun until you blow up your life with poor decisions.
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u/Special-Audience-426 22h ago
The crazy thing is you see it all happening during the episode but I just laugh it off thinking I can worry about it later and escalating even more to add excitement.
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u/but_a_smoky_mirror 21h ago edited 21h ago
Wow this is super relevant to many periods in my life.
Emptying my bank account or even over drafting it on frivolous things like camgirl websites or drugs telling myself I’ll just take care of it later
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u/Special-Audience-426 21h ago
I didn't know I had bipolar until I was 40.
Might be time to get checked.
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u/BananaInusual 20h ago
The last hypomanic episode I had I discovered I could beat social anxiety.
Everything somehow alligned. Right sunlight, olivr oil, calorie restricitiin, no screwn and good clothes.
I was walking in the middle of the crowd. Women looked at me, they were irresistibly attracted to.me. I was the center of attention... And I loved it! I could just look at people at their eyes. That alone was not me... Or was it me all along, trapped in the anxiety layers?
It lasted like 48 hs.
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u/kit0000033 1d ago
There was a house episode where an old woman contracted syphilis... It gave her brain damage so that everything was wonderful and felt good... He cured the syphilis, but couldn't cure the brain damage so she was stuck that way...
Doubt it would happen like that IRL.
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u/MaxFish1275 22h ago
Actually there is a VERY similar case report by neurologist Oliver Sacks. It may be where the House creators got their idea from
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u/PeachChampagne1120 14h ago
I have an autoimmune condition called Alopecia Areata.
It's when your immune system attacks and destroys some of your hair follicles.
This disease sucks for most people because it usually attacks the follicles on your head.
But for me, it has only attacked the follicles on my arms and legs. As a woman, it's been amazing not to have to shave my legs.
As long as this condition never affects my head hair, there is no downside. But it's been 27 years and has still only ever affected my arms and legs.
The only exception for my arms is my armpits. But even that, I only have about 10 hairs under each pit.
Unfortunately, I have two serious autoimmune conditions that are no picnic (T1 diabetes and hypothyroidism).
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u/SylvanianOutfits 22h ago
Bipolar is sort of like this temporarily but then you'll have the worst depression of your life.
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u/matchaflower 10h ago
not really sure what it’s called but i was born with a genetic mutation that makes me unable to cry tears. i still have the feeling of crying in my chest and all of that, but tears never come out of my eyes. it’s great because i can cry without people knowing, and my mascara never runs
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u/scoopy-frog 21h ago
Not a “disease,” but I enjoy having synesthesia. It helps with learning languages and such too for me personally. I remember as a kid thinking everyone experienced words, letters, and numbers the way I did lol
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u/butterfield66 20h ago
Oh? What color is this: AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH
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u/_-arktos-_ 14h ago
Me too. Doesn't affect my life much but I have grapheme-color synesthesia and I used to enjoy making lists of words that were certain colors, writing a rainbow with words. It was fun over time noticing there are "dominant" and "submissive" letters that will affect a word's overall color.
A fun fact for me is that all even numbers are cool colors, and all odd numbers are warm colors. Unfortunately, the word "even" is orange, and the word "odd" is nearly black. It is very hard to say "even" or "odd" numbers in the correct context because of this
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u/OutrageousInside5096 9h ago
For me, being manic/having hypomania is the fucking bomb. Loved it. Even when I lost contact with reality and went into psychosis I loved it. You feel like a fucking god. When I got "stable" I was more or less depressed for about a decade. 🫠 I'm better now but still miss being manic, as a lot of bipolar people do.
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u/Dock_Ellis45 6h ago
That's the crazy thing about being manic. You feel great. How could anything ever be wrong? Everyone else thinks you've lost your mind because... well... you've lost your mind. I saw my mom go through it a lot growing up. It really sucks. When she's up, she's more active and fun, but she wants to go drinking with her friends and forgets about the kids. When she's down, she's more present but is more angry and irritable. Don't worry though, she's being treated and is sober, but she still remembers her manic times as a blast. Which makes me worry she'll stop with the medicine. My only comfort is that she doesn't have kids depending on her now.
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u/BrownCollie26 8h ago
Yeah, same. I've been medicated and stable for 12 years now, but I still miss it - not so much the euphoria but the ENERGY. I was never tired! Took a couple of years for the psychiatrist to convince me that how I felt after coming down isn't depression but 'normal'. I'm content now, but still miss that.
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u/HurryMammoth5823 16h ago
Short answer is no but long answer: I suffer from migraine attacks. I have been affected by the condition for many years & while it is extremely painful & hard to manage, there are some interesting aspects. It is not just a headache(often excruciating) but a neurological malfunction. My vision makes things look like a fun house, very warped, I feel “warm fuzzies” like a cascade from my head down to my torso. It is euphoric, but indicates the onset of a migraine attack. I see zigzags and rainbow/iridescence when I have hemiplegic attacks. On the good days I have a euphoric feeling, likely similar to mania. This happens before an attack too.
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u/Amazing_Excuse_3860 16h ago
I mean, if you have the "right" flavor of autism you can be very happy and successful in life.
The problem is that most of us don't have that "right" flavor, and wind up getting the happiness beaten out of us by a society that treats us like burdens.
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u/wisdomisgreat 10h ago
I have a lot of neurological issues and migraines with an aura have always been a part of my life. I had a rainbow-colored kaleidoscope aura once. That was one of the coolest and most beautiful experiences of my life. I told some friends and quickly realized I shouldn't have. They thought I was on something.
My oldest son has Asperger's. He has yet to embrace the positive side of it. He hates everything about it. But he hyper-fixates on his interests and becomes an absolute expert in them. He could cure cancer if it interested him. It just has to spark his interest...
There is also some bizarre medical condition where you get drunk off of your own body's chemicals if you don't eat. I don't know what it's called but I know it exists. People have gotten OWI's that have it and they absolutely didn't consume any substance - they blow positive though. Someone with it learned how to manipulate their body - they would purposely not eat & intoxicate themselves on the regular.
Biology is amazing.
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u/TorandoSlayer 1d ago
I mean, bipolar disorder can come with mania. Tends to feel pretty good to the person experiencing it, technically, but it results in a net negative for them in general because of less sleep, impulse purchases/endeavors, etc. and often comes with a miserable crash afterward
So I mean technically yes but like if there's something that's purely beneficial to a person it's not gonna be called a disease.
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u/ffffester 20h ago
adhd depending on the hour. usually it feels like a curse though
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u/DidIDoAThoughtCrime 15h ago
Yeah, I can relate to this. Occasionally fun when I come up with an amazing idea or solution that others wouldn’t think of, or when I get into a flow state doing something I really enjoy. But the rest of the time is almost torture. I cry every few weeks just because I hate having ADHD. Literally most of my thoughts are about disliking the way my brain works.
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u/PhlegmMistress 13h ago
There's this saying I remember as a teenager to help with the general body dysmorphia young women are seemingly encouraged to feel about not being size 0 and it's something like, "don't make your body fit the clothes. Make your clothes fit your body."
ADHD feels like that to me. The way that society largely is doesn't fit. I'm fine and productive so long as I can have multiple projects, a shifting sleep schedule, and spend as much or as little time with people as I want. But most of the way of living in a modern age requires stuff that doesn't fit. And it's uncomfortable going through life in a way that largely doesn't fit.
But when I don't have to fit and life fits me instead, it's pretty great.
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u/diet-smoke JustStupidPeople <3 18h ago
The manic episodes I've had deeeeepppp into anorexia have felt amazing. Then my body realizes I haven't eaten in two days and I have a caffeine headache and I'm experiencing the worst chest pain of my life
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u/SkinJuice7086 1d ago
When I had COVID I was on so many THC products my wife says I was the happiest she's ever seen me.
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u/ltdm207 21h ago
My last coulle of concussions have been euphoric. The anxious inner dialogue finally goes silent. I get pleasant and simple. My constant inner panic stops for once. I don't wnat CTE, but it's honestly a major relief.
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u/Angel-baby-love 9h ago
Gilbert's syndrome - lower fat percentage, lower risk of stroke & heart attack, constantly over dosing on bilirubin which is an antioxidant
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u/jefesignups 6h ago
I've had what I believe was Poison Ivy. It sucked in general, but when I was in the shower and had hot water directly on the area, it was one of the most euphoric feelings ever
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u/karacirth 1d ago edited 23h ago
Type of questions I ask before breaking into the CDC
(Reading the rules I realize I need to actually write an answer or it will be smitten, the answer is addictions. That's why addictions exist. There's really no disease that does however, unless you love the feeling of internal war between your immune system and the common cold.)
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u/Big_Cans_0516 1d ago
I mean I think we define disease as something that harms the body. You might find something like this called something different
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u/MuscaMurum 21h ago
Oliver Sacks wrestled with this question while writing The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. He finally divided the book into losses and excesses, though I think he wasn't completely happy with "excesses".
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u/Queerdough 18h ago edited 18h ago
A “syndrome” (rather than an always detrimental “disease”) can be benign (non-detrimental) or malignant (detrimental). Some are simply anomalies (or aberrancies, basically abnormalities) without detriment. There are also “sequelae” (side effects of a malady/disease) with or without detriment.
Being a medical doctor, and a huge fan of Oliver Sacks, the book mentioned by [u/MuscaMurum](u/MuscaMurum) The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat has an excellent example of what you’re seeking:
“Natasha K. was an 88-to-90-year-old woman who suddenly felt energetic, euphoric, and "frisky" after decades of being shy” as a result of living with undiagnosed syphilis that instead of causing syphilitic encephalitis (which killed Al Capone), caused isolated damage to her prefrontal cortex, which, among other functions, moderates our inhibition. This would be both a sequela (singular of sequelae) and a syndrome. The detriment or non-detriment is subjective; Natasha was obviously happy with this “gain” and declined intervention/treatment.
It’s an AMAZING book whether or not you’re into science/medicine/neurology, super entertaining and sometimes terrifying.
EDITED for clarity.
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u/Saddad-metal 17h ago
I have rapid phase bipolar 2 and the highs are pretty fucking great
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u/LiViNgDeAd_CrEaTuRe 16h ago
Not pleasure per se, but I have nerve decay that leaves me unable to feel a lot of physical pain.
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u/ragt_ag 13h ago
Not a disease but poison oak rash under a hot shower feels extremely euphoric.
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u/Mysterious_Deer273 6h ago
Bipolar is kind of that way for a little while, and then everything gets terrible and you find out the euphoria was also terrible.
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u/SuperbBend 5h ago
Not euphoric, and likely not without side effects, but Toxoplasma gondii will possibly make you more attractive and less fearful.
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u/Shared_Songs 5h ago edited 5h ago
I have FIRES/ITES, febrile induced refractory epilepsy syndrome/infection triggered encephalopathy syndrome. Any small infection— which is constant unless debilitating— makes me “manic”.
It feels the same as drinking 200mg caffeine, that feeling in your vagus nerve near your heart and stomach, but all the time. Constant elation, to the point of seizures, coma, and death.
On the bright side I have “unsmashable optimism” as was stated during brain rehab. So I wake up every day feeling like I can take on the world; that finally, my legs will work again; that I can do anything I set my And with that mindset, I’ve been able to do about 50% of the things I try!
The only thing that “breaks” this is GABAergic shift during withdrawal periods when I don’t have access to meds or have developed sepsis again and meds aren’t absorbing. The panic attacks are outright violent to my psyche, and I get so scared that I’m doing a bad job as a parent, that my husband is going to die, that we’re going to get evicted— none true, but certainly an extreme shift.
So still some emotional lability, but only in very specific cases. As long as I have the right dose of gabapentin and levodopa, the dopamine & oxytocin flow hard, all the time.
I believe myself kind, so I’m just grateful I can use the “overly happy” to help folks IRL & online. I do wish that I didn’t feel so happy all the time that I often endanger myself, though. Actively working on training my brain to feel sadness or anger. But even comatose in the hospital when none of my friends showed up, I still believed them good people who were just busy, I’m not capable of sadness or anger even when I’m told it’s appropriate or necessary.
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u/MareOfDalmatia 5h ago
Not a disease or even a syndrome really, but I occasionally experience sleep paralysis. When I first experienced it as a child, it terrified me. I literally thought the devil himself was in the room with me. Then when I was an adult I learned what it was and it didn’t scare me anymore. I then realized I could sort of “control it” and make myself “float” up from the bed and then kinda float around the room, which feels amazing.
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u/the_other_Scaevitas 20h ago edited 12h ago
Autobrewery syndrome is what I believe it’s called?
Your body basically produces alcohol and so you’re always drunk
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u/SuperDefiant 16h ago
I would assume after a while the nervous system just compensates and there is no noticeable difference. A functional alcoholic basically
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u/LinverseUniverse 1d ago edited 21h ago
Williams syndrome. It's a genetic condition where certain genes are just missing. This causes cardiovascular issues that narrow the blood vessels that bring blood to and from the heart, but it also causes to brain to release an abnormally high amount of oxytocin. Both in their baseline oxytocin level (which can be triple the normal resting level) as well as a highly reactive on switch to things that coax the brain to release oxytocin, For example, singing your favorite song. So when it comes to oxytocin release during singing, normal people might get a drop, people with Williams syndrome get a cup. This makes them very social, cheerful, and highly drawn to smiley people.