Sam

Her name was Sam. At least that's what I would have named her from afar. It didn't matter what she called herself. She was real. Petite too; 5'5" and barely scratching a hundred pounds. She reminded me of a bopper from the 20s with wavy brown hair cut just below the ears. She said she was a painter, sometimes a sculpter. She could've been my younger sister. I could've kissed her. Instead we talked as we walked along the hallways of floor 7G of Roosevelt Hospital--the psych ward.

"I was getting pulled by the wind," she said. "I had just left my ex-boyfriend's--I mean my boyfriend's. The wind kept pulling me until finally I was against the door of this building. Then I went inside, and I saw these empty white walls and I figured I'd make an exhibit. Performance art you know. So I started swirling in circles. There was this audience but they didn't get it. They kept trying to stop me. Someone called the police."

"What'd you do?" I asked.

"I kept spinning. Then they came and brought me here."

"That's pretty funny."

"At least you got it." She smiled. "Aside from you, there's not much to do here."

I laughed. "Welcome to hell. The food isn't so bad though."

Awkward silence.

"So you from New York?" I asked.

"California and Connecticut. I've been here for six months. I stayed with my boyfriend for a couple of days. Then we broke up. I moved in with some friends I met. What about you?"

"Ohio. I don't really live here, just sort of passing through. I actually drove here."

"And then you end up in the hospital?" she asked.

"Something like that, yeah. Once I got here I started walking. I parked my car, got out, and just started moving. I even stayed in a shelter for three days. Then I walked here."

"I do that a lot. Walk around."

"You move in circles too."

She laughed. "Yeah, that too. You know they gave me a shot to calm down." She held out her shoulder where there was a band aid.

"Holdrol?"

"Benadryl. No, maybe that one. I don't know. I didn't like it. It made my heart slow down."

"They once put me in restraints. Tied me down with leather straps. I wasn't even violent. Just arguing with a nurse."

"They did that to me in the back of the ambulance. Just my wrists thought."

"Have you taken the medication?" I asked.

"I refused," she replied.

"They're just placebos anyway. That's what irritates me about mental health. It's all bullshit without any true science to back it up. I mean, how can they diagnose me bipolar when they can't even scientifically or medically explain what bipolar is? You know they vote on what qualifies as a disorder." I feel satisfied airing out my views.

"I once read through their book, the DSM. There's some weird disorders in there."

A nurse interrupted our walk. to talk with Sam. I told her I'd see her around.

The beauty of Sam was how she took everything so lightly. She would laugh, wave off the doctors, not worry about the seriousness of life. She told me she had gone to college for a semester to study art. She dropped out, came to New York. No job. Life was hallway to walk down. I felt relieved in her company.

Later on, watching, I joked that she would have been a stand in for a Chaplin film.

"I bet you would look great in overalls," I said.

"I own three pairs," she replied. "How'd you know?"

"Just that look about you."

"Thank you."

Sitting there at the table in the TV room, I wrote her a poem. A gift of words the best I could give her at the moment. I wrote it on a paper towel because the nurse wouldn't give me paper. I swallowed my shyness and let Sam read it. It brought a smile to her face. That was good enough. There's a thin line between romance and hyperbole. The words can their best to capture a moment in time, a feeling. Memory is the only true camcorder.

She made a painting for me in return. Right on a Bran Flakes cereal box. I thanked her but deep down I knew that it's the things that go unsaid that makes a bond permanent. What we had together, if only briefly, was an unspoken friendship. Two days in a psych-ward. It doesn't get more real than that.

Later that night, sitting across from each, we ate Oreos with our feet tucked beneath us.

"We should call today a date," she said.

"That was the cheapest date I've been on." Without much segueway, I added, "I'm going home tomorrow."

"That's too bad."

"I wish I could stay but the shelter isn't going to do it. I need to establish myself here one day. You should come to Ohio. We've got a great art museum."

"Where is at?" she asked.

"Toledo. Right on the northwest corner of the state. Not much there, but if you're ever passing through."

"I'm going to St. Louis pretty soon. I have some friends I want to see. That's not too far from Ohio."

"I have an aunt who lives in Missouri. We could take a road trip. Ohio's only 12 hours away."

"I'm going to miss you," she whispered.

I wrote down my phone number on a paper towel with a marker. The hospital didn't allow pens either.

"We'll keep in touch," I lied.

"When you come to New York again, we'll be friends right?"

My heart sank. For once I didn't want to leave the hospital. "You'll be the only person I look up," I lied.

I hugged her before going to bed, regretting not having kissed her.

The next day we shared lunch together and then went to art therapy group. In the middle drawing black lines on a sheet of paper a nurse came in said my dad was here. Sam and I hugged again before I said goodbye. I regretted not kissing her.

Path of Least Resistance

Walking down a dilapidated pier
Toward an uneventful horizon
Save for a blooming ominous cloud
Spreading its wings over the horizon.

A cool breeze blows against me
Pushing me back from the edge
Circles spread out like pulses
Where a boy spits in the blue.

When all directions point forward
Saving grace lies in the unfolding doom
Knowing full well home is behind me--
So much depends on a breeze and a cloud.

Isolation baby desperation child [2004]

Isolation baby desperation child
We met at the mouth
Under an envelope of envy
She whispered, "have your way"
Only youth kept me from obliging

Undeterred, she crawled upstairs
Now the smell of dew and bare ass
Bad things happen at the right moments
This one was no different
So I hugged her and said it would be alright

We cowered under a torn blanket
Long enough to simmer in sin
Then I suggested I drive her home
In the car she asked if I loved her
I just stared ahead

St. Luke's Roosevelt

The halls are painted cream with egg white trimming. Combined with the fluorescent light and you realize this is what depression is: an ugly color scheme. A hospital should make you feel happy, invited. I want to throw up. I've seen McDonald's that look better than this. Throw in the brown furniture and you have a perfect shit storm. That's St. Luke's Roosevelt floor 7G. The pysch ward. I've been here a week.

I came here on my own accord. Living in a New York shelter, without any money or ID, I had nowhere to go. I had no friends in the world except for the one in my head. He's the reason I'm here in the first place. Voices. They get me every time. They're the one's that said run to New York. I listened. But I'll save that story for another time. This is about Roosevelt hospital.

I've been holed up her for exactly seven day. I've seen the doctor once. It's not very promising. The psychiatrist says she is going to change my medication to a dosage that's effective. I've heard the same thing for three years. You learn to nod your head, act interested. You almost want to believe it this time. But belief betrays hope, and without hope you're left with reality. Reality is depressing. I'll cling to hope.

Apparently my doctor is on leave this week. The problem is no other doctor has seen me. I was admitted on Friday, saw the doctor on Monday, and it's now Thursday. My week has been wasted sitting in a hospital. Not that time matters right now. I'm unemployed. Once I get on disability, I'll be living the dream. Officially retired. I'm going to learn French and how to play the piano. But I might not get out of here for weeks. In the meantime, I'm getting fat. Too much food. Too many sweets for snacks. That's the hospital for you.

With little to do, food is the only thing to look forward to. I count the hours on the clock, waiting for mealtime to be called. The meals are the only thing worth boasting about here. Breakfast consists of a hard boiled egg, a muffin, and a bowl of cereal. You also get a fruit of your choice. I always get a banana. There's also the complimentary cup of decaf coffee.

Lunch and dinner always come with dessert. My favorite is their brownies from Sarah Lee. Plenty of calories. We have snack time at 8 pm. I always get a package of Oreos, a bag of Sunchips, and cup of yogurt. Sometimes they add ice cream. I'm definitely getting fat.

I made a friend here named Zach. He claims he lost 30 lbs. in five weeks. He's been here for five weeks. He hears voices in his head that tell him he's Goku from Dragon Ball Z. He's the only person I've met whose story is worse than mine. Hospitalized 25 times and he's only 22. He's been in jail and rehab. His mom died from an overdose. I feel guilty because I find comfort in knowing someone else's life is more fucked up than mine. We're both bipolar. I don't want to be here for five weeks though. One is long enough.

Which brings me back to waiting on my doctor. I'm on a lower dose of medication than what I was on before I came here. I'm going backwards. This is why my faith in psychiatry is shaky at best. They base their diagnosis on any real science, but rather the story you tell them and any symptoms they can actually observe. Hard to do when they occur in the mind. Hell, even their bible, the DSM, a comprehensive guideline for diagnosing all the mental illnesses, is voted on. Imagine if doctors voted on what qualifies as cancer. But that's that the state of mental illness in 2013. Snake oil, placebos, and limited research. This makes me lose hope.

St. Luke's Roosevelt is a shining example. They feed you, but they don't cure you. They waste your time. I refuse to just sit here and believe their medication is going to make me better. I have too much faith in cold science to believe it. Medicine won't help until a doctor can say scientifically what bipolar disorder is. How is the brain affected? I'd trade this disorder for diabetes in a heartbeat. At least I can take comfort in knowing science can explain that one.

The World's Not Over

The only thing that separates mania from reality is lack of results. The manic mind can come up with compelling narratives, believable schemes, even realist expectations. but what the manic mind fails at is achieving results.

I should be a nurse right now. I was accepted into an accelerated nursing program two years ago. Then I got re-accepted last year. Both times, mania forced me to withdraw. I've seen my life flushed down the toilet too many times to count. The latest I was too numb to care. I've been there and done that.

My new goal is law school. I want to get involved in law and politics, become a lawyer, have wanted to for years. Nursing was just a good paycheck. I can swallow this defeat.

I've applied for disability, receive food stamps, will probably get government housing. My faith in American welfare is strong. We don't let our citizens starve. I know first hand. What we don't do is provide options. At least not feasible ones. Once you go poor, it's a bitch getting out.

My recent manic episode led me to New York city. My third time here. I hate this fucking hell hole. Opportunity is everywhere, but the people are loud and rude. No one speaks English. No one knows where anything is. I walked around Manhatten for 12 hours looking for a hospital.

When I first arrived I got myself into the shelter system. I had no ID, no wallet, no money. No where to go. Just a hospital letter stating I was homeless. The shelter took me in. I made it three days. I never want to be homeless again.

Our government provides shelter for the homeless, but what they don't provide is an easy way out. What do you do when you don't have enough money to buy a toothbrush or razor? I'm not a native New Yorker, being from Ohio. I don't qualify for housing cash assistance, or welfare. Without my social security card or birth certificate I can't even get a New York ID. Freedom may be having nothing left to lose, but ask the closest bum how free they feel? Being dependent on strangers isn't my idea of freedom.

I won't throw out the word "socialism" but it's time we start to talk about social progress. The "American Dream" is an archaic term, especially when our minimum wage isn't enough to support a family of three, nor at a time when receiving a quality education that might help you get a well-paying respectable job costs the same as a small house. We're holding back our citizens and great minds. Poverty, mental illness, lack of options, being born to the wrong family--this is the real crisis facing Americans. This is why I want to get in to politics. I've experienced too much shit to not care. I've left everything I've ever had in the waste. I've seen too many opportunities thrown away and felt too much heartbreak. My only option is to care.

A voice tells me once in a while, "The world's not over for you Mike. It's only begun." That's one I don't tell my psychiatrist about.

To the Lady in My Head

If I kept her in my head forever,
Would she even be real?
Only if a dream can become reality,
A vision undisturbed by obstacles.
If that is the mark of a mad man,
Then strike me as crazy.
It's a fool's game to wish for miracles,
And a blindman's to wait for coincidences,
But in this head
It is only the mental distortion
That prevents belief.
Were I sane I'd run from your echo
And hide from your song,
But belief is the only thing
That I can cling to,
And if other's words offend me,
Only you can redeem
This worthless character
In a dime store narrative.

The Seed

Michael Medlen

It's here in this garden that I marked the spot

where I first came in her soil.

There I planted my seed that bore her fruit.

She wanted to name her Lilly.

We settled on Rose instead.

Purity became hybrid and what I gave

grew up at its pace.

Now everyday I stroll past this spot

where Rose was clipped for the first time,

only to see a multitude of buds take up her place,

and that gives me all the pleasure I need

because I know I worked it right.

Happiness is a warm gun

The only way I can describe you euphoria is by comparing it to hypnotism. It seems unbelievable, fake, and yet scientists can show that its real. People who have undergone its powers can attest that their experiences are legitimate. According to Wikipedia, "Persons under hypnosis are said to have heightened focus and concentration with the ability to concentrate intensely on a specific thought or memory, while blocking out sources of distraction." This, for me, exactly describes euphoria. All of my senses become dulled so that there's no distractions. It's like getting high from pot. Everything becomes slow motion. I can concentrate with an intense like zen state. It's amazing.

But that's not the issue. If this was the only thing I could glean from euphoria, I could be a genius. The problem stems from the intense happiness associated with it. This is mania. Imagine being so happy that you become destructive. Spending spree? Can't be a bad thing when I'm feeling so good. Wasting money doesn't seem bad when you feel guilty. Illogical thinking? Logic becomes distorted when you feel so good. Ever made a bad decision when you're drunk. That's what mania is. Bad decisions. Clouded thinking. Even the most upright person can fall victim. 

This is why education about manic depressive (or bipolar) is important. Much like how we don't blame a person for alcoholism, you can't blame the manic depressive for the damage done when they're manic. They're a different person going through an intense experience. This could probably be said about criminals. Is anyone truly a sociopath? Should we blame the individual for a crime? Or should we examine that nature of why the criminal committed a crime. But I digress. This is socialist talk, and in a country that spout its morals while also looking for justice porn, to suggest we help the individual rather than punish them communism. I'm speaking in hyperbole, but you get the point.

And yet, mental health has come a long way. For example, look at the Disability Discrimination Act. The fact that I live in a country that identifies mental disorders alongside physical disorders is comforting. Mental heath is a legitimate medical disorder and its only time before scientist provide a way to medically diagnose a disease such as schizophrenia or manic depressive. This is why the funding for this research is so important. As it stands, the only way to diagnose the aforementioned disorders is based off of testimonials and observation. There is no blood test for manic depressive. Which is why it's so important we understand mania. I have trouble imparting to people who have never witnessed a manic person behave the dangers of what mania is. Which brings us back to euphoria.

Why can't we contain it? If there was a way to harness the good effects of it, the concentration, positive mood, elevated spirit, hell even the raise of confidence, this country could very well be the leader in behavior modification. Of course, we already have this in the form of marijuana, but that is just more liberal talk. I'd rather explore it from a medical standpoint. Couldn't they devise a pill that bring on a hypomanic state? One that brought the good feeling while curbing the distorted logic. I can attest that mania does have its benefits. Increased energy, productive behavior. I mean, when I go manic I get shit done. I spent three days reorganizing my garage. The place was a dump. You couldn't even see the floor because of all the junk that was in there. Three days and I not only cleaned it out, I had built shelves for the all the walls, organized all of my tools into a cohesive design, and washed the floor. That was production.

                                         multiculturalhealing.org

But as always, mania leads to destruction. Maybe I'm asking for too much. Isn't life just fleeting moments of happiness and despair. With the good must come the bad. Maybe looking the happiness is asking for the warm gun as John Lennon would say. For now I'll stick with reality.

Get Sleep, Don't Travel: A Manic Episode

It begins in a car with a bottle of Serroquel. It ends in a cheap hotel room with a volume of The Complete Works of Shakespeare and leftovers without any other medication. There's an empty bottle of Coors and an empty pill bottle. This is what they call mania. The lack of control of behavior or thought. This time it consists of a suicide attempt. The journey isn't pretty.

It starts off when I hear a voice telling me to quit my job. This is while driving an ambuelette for the company I work for. The job is easy but pays minimum wage. It leaves little time to enjoy the finer things in life. It should come as no surprise that I listen to the voice and quit my job. Money doesn't concern me at the moment because I've acquired a modest savings account that can support me until I start nursing school in August. That gives me a month to enjoy that which I've missed out on the last eight years out of high school. Only mania could drive me to think this way. I embrace it with arms wide open.

A week later I'm in a car heading to Chicago. I live in Toledo, Ohio. The drive takes four hours according to the GPS, but I'm travelling without directions. It's just me, the open road, and the trusting of road signs. I make it to Lafayette, Indiana by 3 pm. By 5 pm I'm lost in this town looking for Purdue University. There's a reason people use maps. Sometimes the signs don't lead to the right direction. But this is a lie. Sometimes mania leads me astray. It's hard to follow signs when I have no direction. Purpose is a useful compass that I currently lack. Frustrated, I find my way back to the expressway where the sign says Chicago. This I can trust.

Four hours later I hit the mark. It took only seven to get there. But Chicago is only an arbitrary destination. Once there I lose focus or purpose. What exactly did I come here to see? I told myself I'd be gone for a seven days. I can't imagine wasting two here. The voices agree. Let's get a hotel they tell me. Not a bad idea. I settle for a motel that cost $40 a night. Not bad.

I don't make it through the night.

First off, I decide that I'm going to talk to my lady friend that I believe is real. We're destined to meet. She talks to me through my mind. It's only a matter of time before she reveals herself in the flesh. I know because she told me so. Mania makes the illogical sound believable and reasoned. Never mind that the technology to talk through minds doesn't exist. Nor the ability to meet a random stranger through telepathy. She doesn't need the details. That would be logical.

I call her Stephanie. I'm too embarrassed to tell why. It involves a celebrity. My mania makes a storyteller blush. But that's just my way of coping with the destruction it brings. I find ways to make it humorous, adventure filed, and dangerously exotic. I've been to the edge, peered over it, and waved. I've come close to falling over it, but so far I've been lucky. This episode I'm dip my toes in the water below. A suicide attempt.

Stephanie convinced me to swallow half-a-month's supply of Serroquel. I drowned it with Coor's Light. The effects were immediate. I couldn't force myself to throw up. It felt like my brain was having seizures. I would freeze mid action. The worst was trying to walk. I would pause mid-step. So much for walking this out. Worse, I hadn't slept in three days. I got so tired I tried to fall asleep, but every time I felt a pinch in my mind. I'd see black and then feel my brain quiver. That was another seizure. This lasted 16 hours. It felt like forty. And then I passed out.

That's mania. The flip side was waking up and realizing I had wasted a thousand dollars over a two day spending  spree on food, clothes, gas, and a cheap motel. My vacation consisted of driving and OD'ing on medication. At least I made it to the art museum after I woke up. I called it a vacation and used the GPS to return home. It took four hours.

Coming down from the mountain is never fun. I go through a short period of loss of attention span. I'm restless. I can't sit still. I can't focus. Watching a  movie is like measuring eternity one second at a time. Time can be a form of torture when one is aware of it. When the conscious becomes a clock, the world becomes a barren wasteland. That's depression.

I call it manic depressive. Others call it bipolar. It holds some people hostage. Others say its exhiliarting. I find a way to make it a story. That's how I cope. I survive and live to tell it. Or as Lil' Wayne once said, "I tiptoe hell's boundary." My only advice I can give myself is to get sleep and never travel. I haven't had the chance to test these words out. I'll get back to you.

I found a really great image that describes bipolar disorder

This was taken from Reddit. Enjoy!

Coping with Disaster:

A Manic's Tale

     John woke up in a hospital bed. There was nothing but bare walls and a door with small slit through which he could see a nurse's station. He had no idea how or why he was there. With nothing but a hospital gown on, he got up and tried the handle. It was locked. There was something unsettling about being locked in a tiny room, dependent on the staff to let you out. Then a voice reminded him that he was here because he needed it. She was a female, but it came from inside his own head.

    “Try to remember the night before,” she said.

     John ignored her voice. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't convince himself it wasn't real. Out of frustration, he pounded on the door and let out a scream. A nurse looked up from the nurses' station and signaled to an aide in a beige uniform. The aide opened the door.

     “You need to calm down,” the aide said.

     “Where am I?” John asked.

     “You were brought here overnight by the police. You need to relax.” The aide closed the door and locked it.

     John lay back down. As his memory came back, he remembered when he first began hearing the female's voice. It was three days ago. He was driving to work when she first announced herself.

     “My name is Stephanie,” she said.

     John quickly looked behind in the passengers' seats. Not noticing anyone, he checked to see that the volume was turned down on his radio. Confused, he made sure his cell phone was not on speaker phone and that he had not accidentally called a contact. His phone was not turned on.

     “I've been spying on you,” the voice continued.

     John listened intently, realizing the voice must be coming from inside his skull. It felt like someone whispering in his ear, like they were leaning up against him to give him a secret message. He couldn't make sense of it.

    Finally, as if it was only natural, he spoke aloud. “How have you been spying on me?”

    “We can wiretap your thoughts. We can see through your eyes. We can observe your life. We have the capability to monitor you. You've never noticed.”

     “How?” John asked.

     “I've already told you too much,” Stephanie said.

     The voice went away. Naturally, John began to question his sanity. He called off work and drove back to his apartment, where he promptly googled schizophrenia. Hearing voices was an indicator of having the disorder. The thought drove John to throw up in his toilet. He then drowned two beers and googled thought monitoring. After digging around, he found out about a technology called voice to skull technology. The government had the capability to send signals directly to the brain, as if someone was speaking right next to you. John became a conspiracy theorist after reading this, and was convinced someone was playing an elaborate hoax on him. Satisfied, he called his earlier conversation a prank and watched TV. Unfortunately, things only became weirder the next day.

     The next morning in bed, John woke up to the voice. “I'm breaking the rules by talking to you.”

     John ignored her and went into the bathroom. He began to brush his teeth. As he was brushing, a force took over his arm. Without control, the force moved his hand away from his mouth and dropped the brush into the sink. Staring into the mirror, his mouth began to open and close as he began to speak out loud uncontrollably.

     “I can make you talk to me.” Of course, it should be noted this was Stephanie speaking and possessing him, which John found amusing and alarming at the same time. Nonetheless, he sat down on the toilet and listened.

     “I've been watching, and you're a slob.” This time the voice was only in his head. Stephanie continued. “If I have to control you I will. I'm breaking all the rule by doing this, and you will listen.”

Back in the hospital room he looked down at a wrist band that said he was an hospital in Indiana. He lived in Ohio.

     Memories came crashing in from the night before. He remember being arrested for trying to walk barefoot across a bridge. The cop pointed out that he left his car parked in the middle of the road blocking traffic. Stephanie had told him that he was performing a secret initiative to get recruited into the government. John normally don't think this way. Something had happened from the first time Stephanie contacted him to being arrested. It was such a blur, but he remembered quitting his job. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Then he went a day without sleep and decided he was going to drive to the Grand Canyon. Stephanie told him they could meet there. But he couldn't figure out why he began to believe such irrational ideas.

      “How are you doing?” A man with thick framed glasses and a blue button up sat across from John's bed.

     “What's going on?” John asked.

     “You're going through a manic episode. At least, from what you told us last night when you were brought here by the police. You told us you had gone two days without sleep and were driving out west to meet a lady that was talking in your head. These are typical symptoms of a bipolar disorder. You were experiencing mania.”

     John stared at him in disbelief.

     “So I'm not schizophrenic?” he asked.

     The doctor chuckled. “Quite the contrary, I'm diagnosing you as schizo-affective bipolar.”

     John felt his stomach drop at the thought of being diagnosed bipolar. But he also felt relief there was a reason for how he was behaving. This is what mania does to him, he thought. It clouds thinking, turns a person into a caricature of himself, making him believe in conspiracy theories and magic. He felt embarrassed about his behavior.

     The doctor told him he would speak with him throughout the week. Later, a nurse came into the room with his clothes and told John he'd been involuntarily admitted, which meant that he was at the hands of the state and a doctor as to when he allowed to leave the hospital.

     The nurse left the door open. John stepped out into a circular room with a dozen rooms. In the middle was the nurses' station sectioned off with glass. There were a few guys walking around. One looked at John and started to scream about Jesus. This was David.

      For the next few hours John establish a routine of walking around the nurses' station in a circular path. There was a TV at one end of the room but he couldn't sit still to watch it. The passing of time was unbearable in the hospital, to the point that he could only think about how slow it passed. All he could do to stay sane was to walk. He felt restless and being locked up in the hospital intensified the experience.

     During his walks, Stephanie would politely interrupt his thoughts.

     “They put you in here for a reason,” she said.

     “You're a figment of my imagination,” John replied.

     “Doesn't change the fact that you can hear me. They put you in here so that no one will ever believe your story. Now you're just another crazy person with a nut job conspiracy theory.”

     “Who are they?”

     “We're an organization that spies on people's thought for profit.”

     “What's your organization's name?”

     “I can't tell you yet. I'm already in a lot of trouble.”

     “How can you talk to me, tell me you've been spying on me, give details about your operation, but not be able to tell me your organization name?”

     “It's classified,” she said. “Please don't get upset. I care about you John.” Stephanie sounded concerned.

This blew John's mind. He couldn't get over the fact that his brain could really come up with such a convoluted tale. But nonetheless it was proof of his own brain fabricating this story. It was incapable of coming up with a name, which showed a lack of evidence and story.

John felt triumph and relief with this thought and kept on walking for a few more hours until dinner trays arrived.

     The doctor arrived at the same time the next day. “The mind can be a powerful storyteller,” he said. “It can create a persona that you never encountered before. The goal for your the rest of your stay here is to push back the voices into the recess of your mind. I'm prescribing you lithium mixed with Serroquel as an anti-pyschosis.” John could only agree with the doctor's prescription.

      Later that day the nurse gave John his pills. They didn't work. For the next three days John continued to hear Stephanie with newer voices, and learned to lie about it to the staff. He said he was doing better, that he was coming down from his mania. But the truth was he starting to agree with the voices. Psychiatry was bullshit with snake oil passing as placebos.

      Despite his slow acceptance of the reality of the voices, he was still hesitant no matter how much Stephanie tried to convince John she was real. And yet he couldn't believe his brain could fabricate such a complicate lie. His logic was torn in half. Both ideas were unbelievable, but logic also dictated that one must be truth. There was a chance that Stephanie was indeed real, and that gave him comfort.

     “I love you,” she told him on the third night of the stay. John was on his daily walk and when he heard this. “I found out about you through my daily task of monitoring,” Stephanie went on. “You were picked to be part of this. We were planning on initiating you. I never thought I could love a specimen. It's my fault you're here.”

     “Why would you put me here?” he asked.

     “So no one would believe your story. They'll call you schizophrenic. But I also must suffer. For there's no way we'll ever meet. Your role was to be a vessel for other spies to secret converse with one another in the real world. We were going to use you to communicate with other vessels. But I couldn't bear to see that happen to you. So I made you go insane so you could be be put in here. Now you're free from being used.”

    A nurse stopped John during his walk.

    “Are you still hearing voices?” she asked.

     “No,” John replied.

     The nurse frowned and walked away. The doctor always asked the same question. John lied every time.

     “Why must you speak through people?” John asked.

     “Because it's our way of secret communication,” Stephanie replied. “The government developed this technology to interpret and monitor people's thoughts. They also devised technology so that a human being's body could be taken over by another human being via virtual reality. We call it possessing.”

Her story sound convincing and his logic screamed it must be true. But the doctor countered this later in the day.

     “John, plenty of patients tell these stories about their body being possessed by the government or their thoughts being kidnapped. It's all a part of the illness. I'm going to up your dose of Serroquel. If you get better you can get out of here by the end of the week, but so far the voices are still coming to you. That isn't good.”

      John pleaded his case of sanity to the doctor.

      “No one thinks you're insane,” the doctor replied. “It's all an illness.” The doctor left and again John felt the lingering want of a better answer.

      By the fourth night, the nurses had put John in restraints for pounding on the walls. At the time, he was trying to get the voices out his head. They were more than Stephanie this time, but rather multitude of different voices all arguing inside his head. It took three separate shots of Benadryl, Ativan, and Haldol to calm him down. The nurses strapped his wrists and ankles with leather straps to his bed. An aide sat at the foot of his bed to watch of him.

     “I can get you out of here,” Stephanie whispered.

      “How?” John asked. The aide raised his eyebrows but didn't say anything.

     “I know how to calm you down. I can get rid of the voices.”

     “But your voice calms me down,” John replied.

     “It would only be for a short while. At least until you got of here.”

     “I love you,” John whispered.

     “That breaks my heart,” Stephanie sighed. “But we can't be together. I have my duty, and you your life.”

      John fell asleep in the restraints.

      By the fifth day the voices were gone. John felt restless but beside his anxiousness was normal. The doctor remarked that the medicine was finally working, and that with no time he would be out of there.

      And so John got better. Two more days passed without voices or manic energy. He felt restless to get out of there. In the meantime he made friends with a woman who was there on court order for slapping her ex-husband. Her name was Elizabeth and she did yoga in the courtyard. This was what caught John's attention. Apparently her ex-husband had fought for control of her five kids and this had driven Elizabeth over the edge. John would have never guess that such a gentle and kind woman could be capable of such violence. Then again, he never knew he would be capable of getting himself into a locked psych-ward either.

John also worried about his job during the meantime, and through a phone call found out the ambulance company had let him go for consecutive no-call no-shows. John vowed to fight it. Overall, though, John get better in the doctor's eyes and was granted releases after a week in the hospital. Stephanie had not returned in the meantime, nor in the following three months after that.

      During that time, John found another job as an EMT. He also got on with his life, putting behind his experience in the hospital. It had become a footnote in his life, one which he told no one. But occasionally he missed Stephanie's voice whispering into his mind some little insight about his life. It was on a rainy day that he found himself walking alone in the rain that he tried to talk with her.

      “I know you're listening,” he whispered. There was no response.

       John tried a few a times before giving up. He headed back to his apartment and dragged himself up the stairs, his boots leaving a wet imprint on each step. Inside, he went to the bathroom and rinsed his face with water. And then he heard a whisper.

      “I miss you,” she said.

      He looked into the mirror and traced a circle around the edge of his eye with his finger.

      “I knew you'd come back,” he replied.

Hearing voices is the first sign I'm going manic. They come out of nowhere and are swift. Usually they begin by telling me they're my friend. Then they start to control my body. They make me circle my ring finger with my thumb as a sign of trust.

They can be very convincing. Usually they play on my logic. For example, how could my brain fabricate such lies to myself. How can my mind divide itself so that it can talk to itself. But I always counter if this isn't my mind, who are the voices and how are they talking to me. They never give a logical answer. Technology, the government, possession, time travel through minds: these are all excuses they come up with.

I always refer to them as "they."

How do I cope with these auditory hallucinations. This is what I'm still learning. The voices can be very powerful. They can be insightful, helpful, charming, even convince me that I'm in love with a female. But I never can reconcile the fact that they're not real.

The last time they came I wound up driving to Chicago from Ohio and and swallowing a bottle of Serroquel. This wasn't my best night. It left a wild hangover and the shadows of the suicide attempt still haunt me. I wound up being admitted to the emergency room where the voices faded away. But who are they? And if my mind is capable of creating such a far-fetched hoax, why does it go to great lengths to convince myself its real? This is something I must learn to cope with.

Any advice?

I've got a month and a half before school starts and I am unemployed. Here's my lists of daily tasks to keep my mind at rest:

1. Cook a new meal every day
2. See a new sight
3. Workout
4. Play the piano for 1 hour
5. Donate to a new charity
6. Walk for 4 hours
7. Talk to 1 new person

I plan on keeping track of this in a notebook.