New London sits at the mouth of the Thames — a city shaped by the sea, by the military, by transitions. A lot of the people who live here are used to pushing through hard things. But there's a particular kind of hard that comes with mania — the kind where your thoughts are running faster than you can track them, where the decisions feel brilliant in the moment and you only understand what happened afterward, where you've been awake for days and don't think it's a problem. That's not resilience. That's a mood episode. And without treatment, mania doesn't just pause and wait. It tends to escalate. Sindhia Shyras, APRN has nine years of psychiatric experience and sees New London patients through telehealth across Connecticut and in-person at 1 Liberty Sq, Ste 301 in New Britain.
From the outside, mania can look like someone who's finally come alive — energetic, talkative, full of ideas, running on four hours of sleep and apparently fine. From the inside, it feels completely different. Your thoughts are racing so fast that conversations can't keep up with them. You're sure you've figured something out — a business plan, a relationship decision, a financial move — and the certainty feels real. Judgment goes. The internal brakes stop working. You might spend money you don't have, make commitments you can't keep, say things to people that can't be unsaid. And then it ends. And you're left with the consequences of a period you may not remember entirely clearly. That's what untreated mania does. It doesn't just pass harmlessly.
Bipolar disorder doesn't tend to stay the same without treatment. Episodes often become more frequent and can be more severe over time — a pattern called kindling, where each episode lowers the threshold for the next one. The periods between episodes — the stretches of relative stability — can get shorter. For someone in New London who's functioning now but cycling more than they used to, that trajectory matters. Getting ahead of it — rather than managing crisis after crisis — is significantly easier. Sindhia works with people at all stages: early, well-established, complicated. But earlier is genuinely better when it's available.
One of the most painful parts of bipolar disorder for a lot of people isn't the episode itself — it's the aftermath. The financial decisions made during mania. The things said to a partner or a parent. The job affected. The relationships that absorbed the unpredictability. Impulsivity during a manic episode isn't a character issue; it's neurological — the prefrontal cortex, which governs decision-making and impulse control, is essentially sidelined. But that explanation doesn't automatically repair the damage. Sindhia understands that the emotional work around mania — not just the medication piece — is real, and she doesn't skip over it.
Sindhia Shyras sees New London patients by telehealth and in-person at our New Britain office. Call 860-515-8689 or book online.
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