I’ve not been one to divulge much about my identity on this blog, fearful that people who know me and may employ me might find it. But this time I’ll give a little hint about what I’ve been going through. I used to live in Los Angeles, unmedicated and untreated. It got into my head, after taking a couple of writing classes at UCLA, that I should be able to make it into Columbia’s MFA program. I applied and got in. I left behind a burgeoning career. I was really on track to make great strides early in life — I was something of a prodigy in a field I don’t feel comfortable divulging right now. Suffice it to say, I was doing well.

But I didn’t see any of that. All I saw was the escape toward a writing life. I didn’t listen to others’ advice, their knitted brows when I described what I was about to do. I didn’t think about the insanity of throwing away my young career for writing school. In fact, it seemed kind of cool — there I was, succeeding, and I wanted more for myself in some other area so there I went, off into the wild blue with nary a plan or an idea of what was going to happen to me. This, to me, is hypomania in its purest form. I simply would not listen to the practical voices in my own head. I took a major chance.

I haven’t found any work writing — haven’t looked for any, in fact. So I’m back to doing what I used to as prodigy at in LA, several years later and several rungs lower on the ladder. I’m no longer that young, and the stuff I’m working on, in a word, sucks. This leaves me little time to write, so it’s the worst of both worlds. Throw in student loans and you’ve got world-class stress building up. Sometimes I wonder whether my diagnosis of Bipolar II has more to do with my situation and less to do with biology. My doctors have always scoffed at the idea that there’s a difference — they’re there to treat both, and consider both reasonable causes for the disorder. Stress-induced madness, I guess you could call it.

Daily, I try to get back into that headspace I had before I left Los Angeles: heady, self-confident beyond all belief, willing to throw caution to the winds. I could use some of that right now. Music and light drug use are the best I seem to be able to do. Oh yeah — and the milligrams.