Not long ago I put out a call for readers of my column to tell their own stories in dealing with bipolar disorder. Because I'll be in the car for much of the day, and won't be able to blog, I thought it would be a perfect time to present this powerful piece from a regular reader. (I'll post her name and photo later if she's comfortable with that.)

My bipolar onset around 18. There was one visit to an MD who suggested I quit school and marry a cowboy; one visit with a psychiatrist. He played Blood on the Tracks and we agreed the recording wasn't talking to me—that was it for therapy for all those years of confusion. At 36 my husband took me to the hospital; at 40-something I went off the medication. I wanted to be normal.

46, unmedicated, I had a horrendous psychotic episode. But then, it's an ill wind that blows no good, because I did get to stay in France a week longer, even if it was in Sainte Anne's Mental Hospital. I remember looking at my hands after I came out of the psychosis and thinking: sanity, that is what is most important to me. The same little lightning bolt hit me in the Olympia, Washington hospital. Sanity.

My parents were great drinkers, otherwise known as functioning alcoholics. They were a blast. We had fun. Dad flew as a captain for United, brought Mom duty free vodka and me music boxes. Mother was just very lively: except after 6:30 pm! She was never mean, just embarrassing.

My brother molested me when he was around 16, me 15. That only happened once but it left me very confused, especially as I was a willing participant. Couldn't stand up to him, then or now.

Freshman college year: All As, then it plummeted. I just felt weird, depressed, unreal, unshowered. That was a mild precursor to the next episode, at another school—for I felt I'd made such a fool of myself at the first, I transferred.

With the 2nd episode, I was all about grandiose art projects. I called one of my professors repeatedly in a stalker mode. I jumped on the bed. I thought I was Mark Twain (we share a birthday). I got date-raped by an African exchange student who laughed at me.

But the crown jewel of that delusion was driving across the state because I believed Paul Simon had a proposal ring for me. By the time I got to the motel room, the delusional story board had changed and now, I don't remember the plotline.

I rested up at home, i.e., was in a major depression. They sent me back a few time to another school and the same things happened twice, maybe more? Back at home, depressed, finally a boyfriend offered a move with him to Seattle. Steady job, emotional security, 4 years of stability.

Later, married, two children, I became obsessed with a Mexican American man at the juvenile rehab I worked at, though we barely spoke. That, and just being bipolar spun me into hypersexual mania. When the summer ice cream truck was playing "The Sting" I believed someone was looking to kill me. I hid.

I tried to leap out of the car on the way up to the hospital, tried to rip my shirt off in the police car (my husband couldn't keep me from attempting these jumps, so called the cops for help). I was one big howl, like the Allen Ginsburg poem, only I howled really embarrassing things about my obsessive "lover" and who knows what. Restrained to a bed, injected, isolation...then the puzzles and painting little boxes.

The staff and patients at that hospital left a little to be desired. Now the French hospital in ’02 had us at tables of four and we were, for the most part, served our meals. Every morning bowls of steaming cafe au lait. Delicious bread. I didn't like all the food, but neither did the other patients. They were quite particular.

That French episode I went 8 days without sleep. Jetlag threw me off, things piled up, I don't know exactly what caused this one—but I was unmedicated. I just thought each night sleep would come. Even a bedtime bottle of wine only made it worse. Then the 8th day—crash. The TV in the hotel room was a surveillance device; the Irish Tourist Board was spying on me; I was in some cult and had lost precious crystals; Paris was being taken over by Arabs and North Africans and it was revolution; I was on The Amazing Race. But to be emphasized: all these things were real. The worse delusion was all were leaving the planet, those left would be eaten by wild animals.

I wandered all night in Paris with these thoughts. I looked up a lights in rooms, scrawny cats crossed the street, garbage trucks waited at corners. In the morning, women rolled their shopping carts. I made my way to the Paris Expo to join the spaceship. I began pushing people, I think, or somehow causing a nuisance. Then I was on my stomach in a van, 6 sets of boots to stomp on my back when I screamed. Now, I was convinced the police were to slice my foot off below the knee. Paul McCartney's new wife had been made up from parts, like Frankenstein, and I'm sorry to say that, Sir Paul, I really am, but my warped mind believed it was true.

Next thing: in a padded, locked room. A leather belt around my waist, with chains connecting to leather wristbands. More unpleasantness, then to the hospital, which was very nice—except I lived a week with only the clothes on my back.

I don't understand bipolar. I was fine for long periods of time. But I watch my medication pretty closely now. I don't feel quite the same after the last manic episode. I don't know if chemically my brain is different or that the experience has tempered me. We have no support group within a reasonable distance: I go online to Mood Garden, a wonderful bipolar and depression site. I could start up a support group with DBSA myself. I've thought about it...I'm still thinking. I'm not a saint and the burden makes me pause, I have to admit.