According to the diagnostic schema, you can have unipolar depression, but not unipolar mania. If you have mania, the assumption is that you’re bipolar and just haven’t had your first depressive episode yet.
Is it really mania if he actually does the things he says? Most manic episodes have some degree of magical thinking, but when Cruise talks about being adored in front of big crowds, or pulling off some highly complex stunt, he’s making literal plans.
I mean, sure, his desire to film at the space station didn’t pan out, but it’s not like it wasn’t given some serious consideration.
It’s possible with that Oprah interview he had religious mania, or cult mania, or whatever. He could have been feeling ecstatic about Scientology. Religious ecstasy is a thing. He was behaving very strangely.
Wasn’t that when he announced his relationship with Katie Holmes.
He was as giddy as a school girl getting the news that the cutest boy in school likes her.
The Answer can be found in Latrobe… If you have the courage to seek it!
Aside from the cites given: Bale’s performance itself is a reasonable piece of evidence that Cruise was his inspiration. It’s an uncanny impersonation. Bale gets Cruise’s bright brittle intensity just right.
But it isn’t normal behavioral therapy for the benefit of the patient. It’s brainwashing to get you to believe in what the cult believes. The Thetans that oversee the universe, how you must submit to everything they tell you to do and to give them all your money, to cut off anyone who is worried about your giving them all your money, etc. There’s no meaningful therapy taking place. They try to break you down and make you believe you’re so low, that only following everything they say will give you a chance at becoming “clear”. But you never do. It’s about as theraputic as Jim Jones.
My understanding is the term for unipolar hypomania is hyperthymic temperament
Hyperthymic temperament, or hyperthymia, from Ancient Greek ὑπέρ (“over”, meaning here excessive) + θυμός (“spirited”), is a proposed personality type characterized by an exceptionally, or in some cases, abnormally positive or irritated mood and disposition. It is generally defined by increased energy, vividness and enthusiasm for life activities, as opposed to dysthymia. Hyperthymia is similar to but more stable than hypomania.[4][5]
Characteristics of the hyperthymic temperament include:[6]
- increased energy and productivity
- short sleep patterns
- self-assurance, self-confidence
- talkativeness
- risk-taking/sensation seeking
- love of attention
- cheerfulness and joviality
- expansiveness
- tirelessness
Supposedly both Bill Clinton and Teddy Roosevelt had/have this too.
Its not technically a mental illness because it doesn’t ruin your life.
It does kind of fit Cruise.
Tom Cruise made some remarks on his demanding work schedule in a conversation with Ellen DeGeneres when he first appeared on her show in 2003. When asked about his average sleep duration, Cruise revealed that it varies depending on the day’s demands, workload, and his responsibilities as a parent. On occasions when he is shooting a film or engrossed in a project, the Top Gun actor usually manages to get around four to six hours of sleep per night.
Cruise, known for his genuine personality, acknowledged that many might wonder how he manages to maintain his high energy levels with such little sleep. In response, he humorously mentioned the boundless energy that comes with being a parent.
I think of Tony Robbins, the self improvement guru.
Personally, I’d find it exhausting.
Random, but I’d note that Family Guy occasionally has a parody version of Tom Cruise appear. He is depicted as a (very short) high energy, high optimism, guy. It’s very much a joke about the personality we’ve been discussing.
I understood that reference…
I don’t know whether it is depression, but in this interview, soon after the Oprah incident, I think, he struck me as brittle, irritable, and working very hard to act happy. By the second half, he’s just scary. I remember thinking, I wouldn’t want to be alone with him that afternoon, and I hoped Katie would be all right. It’s entirely possible that he’s the sort for whom depression is more irritability than sadness, and that masks the symptoms for folks around him who don’t know how to recognize it.
For what it’s worth, Cruise had supposedly reached “OT level VII” just before the Oprah interview, a level that promises to free you from past trauma and produce euphoria and a variety of superpowers. If this is true, his antics during the interview can be read as a man desperate to project this, or possibly to convince himself of it. Or both. Probably both.
Yeah, engrams are a bitch.