Mental Patient on Board (with Miles To Go...)

My doctor has seen me through every hill, dale, and dusty trail of bi-polar-ism for the past 20 years, the dale side mostly, although you can smash your life to bits in just one manic night,  which isn't swell either.
I apologize to him for coming in last week on his day off but I was dying. I say I don't think his Doctor partner liked me too much. He came in looking like a kindly grandfather and went out like Walter Math-ow in Grumpy Old Men, muttering and wringing his hands.

My doctor is still poring over the notes from my visit with his partner. "Yeah," he says while he reads. "He doesn't do too well with mental patients."
It had never occurred to me that I am a mental patient, although sure as sure I sure am.

I, who have spouted so much about the power of the mind...the power of positive thinking, smiling to jog real smiles, I have had to accept that depression is not a beast I can tame alone. I can't have it counseled or coaxed out. My synapses are lazy or some such,  and therefore not enough joy juice gets through.

I have had to accept that some people need meds to live and I am one of them, despite my former suspicions that meds were cheating or a crutch or a quick fix. I 've had to raise my little white flag again and again and surrender to being ...a mental patient.

"Your case is very complex, " says my doctor. I see the sheaf of papers nearly the size of an unabridged dictionary that charts the course of my previous states of mental health over 20 or so years. Yeah, I say. It's been a ride. We both snort compassionately. "Ain't life grand?" I say like a song.

I tell him I didn't realize how spoiled I am to have him for a doctor. He never gets exasperated and scowls at Bing, Bing, Bing, Ricochet Rabbit! He says hello and other kind things even if I appear as the spluttering, soggy rock  Delila and Gypsy Nurse don't phase him in the least. He hugs me when I tell him my tether to the Mother Ship has been severed and I am lost in space.
"Mom," my grown daughter says, "Will you try not to make all your health symptoms sound like science fiction when you are talking to the doctor?."
"Science Fiction?" I repeat with surprise. 
Meds sound magic and easy, but oh no. You have to be a guinea pig and try different combinations before you get it right. Then out of the blue, everything that has been working doesn't work any more. You notice you're crying again and not stopping like usual, or you want to knock someone's head off when a no thanks would suffice .You don't want to see anybody or be seen. You hide and hide even though no one knows you are missing.

Of course, I have no idea how my story ends, but I know more things than I did yesterday and I am pleased. I am okay with a life with meds. All attempts to go it alone are disastrous.
Still, looney tunes or not, like Frost said, "I have miles to go before I sleep."
I will sing again, my wings only slightly scorched as I climb my way to new ashes.