My Bipolar Journey

One of the key factors in mania is not being able to determine the difference between right and wrong. And in the last days of my manic episode, this is precisely what happened. I signed a lease with my real estate agent and a landlord to rent a 4 bedroom house for $3,000 per month. Extravagant and illogical. Within days of signing the lease, I was arrested and put in jail because there was no room at the psychiatric ward of the hospital. And communicating from a jail cell is virtually impossible. After 3 weeks, a judge had me transferred to the hospital where I spent the next four months. Once again, hard to communicate with no cell phone and just the public phones at the hospital. I felt bad for the owner, but there was nothing that I could do. About a year goes by and I’m living in a room at a friend’s. I receive a letter from the Tribunal Administratif de Logement saying that the owner was suing me for $30,000. That’s quite a substantial amount for a place that I never set foot in and he rented four months later. So I either have to hire a lawyer or represent myself in the next few weeks. Is it fair? No. But by the same token, I understand the owner. I will ask my psychiatrist to write a letter explaining the situation to the judge. We had a mediation session several months ago where I offered to pay the owner $7,500 but he refused. He has absolutely no comprehension of what it means to suffer from a mental illness. So, pardon the pun, but the jury is out. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that this turns out for the best.