MY PSYCHIATRIST IS this pert petite pixie. Excuse me: when I’m manic, and I am manic at the moment, I’m drawn to alliteration like a moth to a flame. Also, to tired analogies. She has a corona of taut blonde curls, perfect teeth, and these clunky brown German-looking Mary Janes that belie her otherwise professional demeanor and let the patient know, let me know, that she engages in hippie activities in her free time: burns sage incense, wears hemp, perhaps dons a patchwork vest. I don’t know why this matters, why she matters at all. Because, despite the fact that I could fold her along her creases, this little doctor of mine, tuck her into a corner of her office behind the red chairs with Nordic names and then take over her life, prescribe my own medications, dictate my own future, I can no longer function as a thinking person on medication.

I will tell you how I came to be medicated, how I came to be unmedicated, and how I came to once again, finally, be medicated. This is my last attempt at writing while medicated: yes, my last attempt to write, because I’m bipolar, and it’s fucking everything up.