I shall call this this "Mental Tequilla Shots" story.
I had a professor in college who was a bachelor in his thirties, lived alone in an on-campus apartment, and he had no problem allowing students to call him at home with questions. Now I do not know if he was bi-polar, but there was this one odd time when I called him at home about the research paper he had assigned the class. When he answered, I could hear in the background that he had the TV turned up VERY loudly. And in the midst of that outrageous din I also discerned that he simultaneously had the radio also turned up just as loudly. Now, I had been to his apartment in the past with other students for study groups, and I knew it was a damned small place. So those two broadcasts were surely echoing off the walls and there was no way (I assumed) that a normal person could possible listen to both broadcasts coherently, and certainly not such decibles comfortably. He anwered, I said hi and identified myself, and then he said "Wait a minute please," and put the phone down. Then I heard the TV get turned off first, and then a moment later the radio also was silenced. He came back to the phone, and I was of course astonished, so and asked point blank why on earth he had them both going at once. He was never one to dodge a question, even a personal question. But for the first time in my acquaintanceship with him, he did exactly that. That was the only time I had ever observed that odd behaviour in him. I guess I had called at the exact right moment, and he somehow forgot to turn down the radio and TV first before picking up the phone. I can't swear he ever did that on a a regular basis. But I kinda wonder if he did in fact make a habit of it.
A few years later, I myself was having a terrible time of it. I was depressed and angry and had a whole lot of general bullshit going on in my life. And one day during that really shitty period of my life I was simply unable to concentrate on even getting the damned housework done. I found my mind so overcharged with inner distractions that my ability to concentrated was non-existent. And then I recalled my phone call to that professor from years earlier. So I decided to give it a try. I turned on both the TV set and the radio, cranked them both up super loud, and that was the magic bullet that did it for me. I was able to clean the house and get the bills done and then sack out and relax. I do not know if I am bi-polar. And I am happy to say I have never had another episode of that happen again, so I haven't bothered to check it out. But for the first time I understood why my professor had done that.
I can best compare this to a shot of tequilla. When you do a shot of tequilla as a straight shot, you need to also have a wedge of lime and a snuff boxfull of salt (your snuffbox is the membrane of skin between your thumb and your index finger). You must first toss back the shot, then instantly suck the salt off your snuffbox, then just as instantly grab the wedge of lime and jam it into your teeth. You must do it with as much haste as possible --three seconds is good (one second for each component of the one-to-three ritual). The reason you take your tequilla in this manner is that the taste of straight tequilla (not watered down or mixed with anything else) is so powerful that it completely overwhelms your mouth. So to try and "distract" your tastebuds, you offset the extreme bitterness of the tequilla with the extreme saltiness and sourness of the salt and the lime.
The TV is the salt and the radio is the lime. And together, they distract your otherwise overwhelmed mind from whatever brand of mental tequilla shot that life (or mental illness) is sending at you.
Again I do not know if this was a case of bi-polar disorder for either my professor or myself. But it might be worth considering for your research.
