There were signs before the disaster took place. No sleeping, running around firing off crazy emails at 3 in the morning. Buying 6 guitars in 3 days on ebay without telling my partner, who wondered where all these beautiful instruments came from. Verbalizing weird reactions to movies, thinking they were really about me. Hyperreligiosity. On and on. Definitely, signs.

But then, one day, I suddenly freaked out, believing I had to get to my Alano Club up town by 3 o'clock in order to defuse a nuclear bomb. It's a ten-minute drive in no traffic. It was 257 pm on a Friday. I drove like a maniac in rush hour traffic, hitting another car and causing some injuries. I wound up in the ER. Explained the gravity of the whole nuclear bomb situation to the psychiatrist there and--voila!!! Bipolar 1 diagnosis.