This made all the expert MD’s and PhD’s in their long white coats observing me perk up, and move a little closer, like I was a rare, Janus-faced snow leopard in the Himalayas showing himself for the first time. All the doctors murmured, jotting notes down, or texted furiously with their frantic thumbs. Creepy PhD’s even filmed a couple of my psychotic episodes until a ref blew a piercing whistle and threw a yellow penalty flag into the crowd.

“Everyone present here today, female or male or anyone non-binary,” the ref explained, “no matter how discombobulated they act or are, deserve their privacy and dignity respected. Everything stated or shared here by our clients is confidential, so it simply can’t ever be filmed or recorded. We aren’t in a zoo here, doctors and counselors of every ilk. This is a teaching hospital. Act appropriately and with respect for every soul, or you’ll be asked to leave and won’t be allowed back in.”

People broke for lunch, and it caused minor traffic jams around my hospital bed with some going this way and that. Doctors, counselors, and LCSW’s used the john or headed to the cafe, or to have a quick smoke outside in the garden, so I shook my head as I tried to clear the cobwebs, and wrote, Am I currently moving up or down? Or am I twirling left of center? Or right? Has my flabby body turned inside out somehow? Am I tumbling down into the fiery coils of heaven? Or am I soaring way up high into the stained futons of hell?

Despite the illegal yellow flag, some MD’s still poked and prodded me and made cruel and unnecessary demands. I’d get dizzy and sleepy and lose track of large gaps of time. I’d wake up days, weeks, and even once a month had passed by, and experts from around the world were still asking me about Lilac the woman and L the painting, and why I kept getting so confused?