VI. What’s the prize for running out on two roommates in two months?

I spent a week in the hospital. The lithium worked its magic and by the time I was released I was feeling quite a bit better, and also, as a result of the medication, thirsty all of the time. Lithium has never been a favorite of mine. The social workers at the hospital set me up with a psychiatrist near the U in Maryland as part of my discharge plan.

But something insidious was happening. I was developing problems with self-confidence. My undergraduate years had been a smashing success. During the week in the hospital and the few weeks after, I began to crumble internally. I doubted my ability to do well in grad school and the idea of moving was terrifying. I’d moved with my family from Virginia to Michigan as a young person and the transition had been awful. I was scared that any move would be just as bad.

I felt deflated – the result of coming off a manic spell and returning to earth.

First I let my Maryland roommate know that I was ducking out on the lease (ouch, I still feel bad about that. I’m so sorry, C!), then I let the University know not to hold my spot. I got an inexpensive apartment with a roommate and a job at a temping agency in a town near my Big Ten school.

I continued to “come down.” Within a month I was circling the drain. I walked out on a second roommate and our month-to-month lease (it was becoming a specialty of mine), quit my job, and moved back in with my mother.

I entered a depression I wasn’t to emerge from for two years.