So, a bipolar woman and an Aspie walk into a bar…

June 13, 2022

Dear Don,

I’ll probably send you some sound bites. I will try to make them sound bites, for your sake. I know that’s what works best for how you process words. But let’s face it. I can’t write in sound bites. Too bad, so sad! READ IT ANYWAY. (Don’t you just love my little dominant streak???!!!)

I was doing really well when I met you, I wasn’t depressed for the first time in decades, literally. I had worked so hard, I had done TMS twice! And I worked diligently with a psychiatrist and a counselor and I was getting involved in support communities and I was doing exceptionally well.

Even when I got the herpes diagnosis, for some odd reason, it turned into a major positive because I was able to research it and help people. People reached out to me. I still have a significant group of newly diagnosed men and women that I correspond with. I made a difference and it almost made it OK.

And then I met you. You had such incredible qualities, kindness first and foremost. And you were honest and direct, didn’t appear to have the ability to manipulate, and you are so incredibly real and aren’t able to be anything but real. I’d never experienced those qualities in anyone else. Plus, you were different. I wanted to understand our differences. I was intrigued.

I was doing so well, too! I was even, and relatively sane, although Mushroom Day was a fucking fiasco. But after Mushroom Day, I decided I’d…