Susanne – Christina Hoffman

January 29, 2026

When Susanne tells you to take the meds, you take the meds.

“I’m not psychotic,” I said to my defense in her office, rubbing my fingers repeatedly over a groove in her giant leather chair. I was looking at Susanne’s collection of ceramic blue jays, not her.

“No,” Susanne said. “Not psychotic, but the medication you’re on just isn’t working anymore. You don’t have to be experiencing psychosis to be on anti-psychotics. That is a harmful stigma.”

I was already on the highest dose of my mood stabilizer, so high that Susanne told me I was probably going to start having word finding problems.

“Word finding problems,” I said. “But I’m a writer. I can’t have word-finding problems.”

Then Susanne told me she is genuinely concerned I’m close to having a manic episode that would ruin my life.

When Susanne tells you to take the meds.

On top of the mood stabilizer, I was also maxed out on my SSRI. I couldn’t cry, I couldn’t cum, I genuinely couldn’t even laugh. But I felt the constant desire to go running, and that I was only sleeping two hours a night – if that.

Susanne said I’m bipolar.

When I started going to see Susanne, it was because I was having panic attacks. I told her I started having them ever since a friend of mine went missing. So bad I was afraid to go to sleep.

Somehow, in trying to get something to stop the panic attacks, I found out I was bipolar. Had I always been? I spoke with my friends about this, and they looked at each other cautiously before saying anything.

Susanne said my bipolar disorder was severe. So serious that I could be dangerous if I didn’t follow her instructions.

Antipsychotics would help, she said.

I felt really nervous and ashamed about the anti psychotics, so I didn’t tell anyone. Susanne said if I were on this medication, we’d have to do calls every month to check in, and that each session was $135. I felt like that was a lot of money, but I was really desperate to feel better, and I wanted more than anything to go to sleep and feel normal again. I’d never struggled like this in my whole life. The problem was inside. The problem was me.

So I took them, and I’d never been so tired. Susanne told me there were no side effects, but women on Reddit were saying it made them gain fifty pounds in a month. “No side effects,” Susanne reassured me.

Two weeks in, I felt sluggish like I was recovering from a head injury, and my legs and arms were feeling puffy. I looked in the mirror three weeks later and didn’t recognize the layer of fat building up under my cheeks. When did that get there?

But I wasn’t going to be vain. I was going to take care of my mental health. And I’d exercise to keep the weight off. I had to.

To keep the weight off I would:

– Take one adderall in the morning (buy from Kayla – $5 per pill -if she runs out, call Rob – $10 per pill)
– Breakfast – 1 egg (no yolk)
– Cigarettes – every time I feel hungry
– Black coffee
– Lunch – BLT (wholegrain bread, no mayo, light B, heavy LT)
– 45 minutes stairmaster
– Dinner – brown rice – dash of sriracha

A few weeks of this, I noticed I was losing the weight I gained, and I knew I could do it – I could stay on top of my mental health and my physical health at the same time.

But I was so tired. It felt like all the months I didn’t sleep were catching up to me all at once. I wasn’t panicking; I wasn’t talking at the speed of sound, but I couldn’t move. I stopped doing the stairmaster; my diet would have to do. My bones felt as if they had been replaced with cement.

I think it was a Tuesday, and I had to pick up my next prescription, but I was so tired. Then I remembered Susanne saying it could be bad if I missed a dose. So I got in my car, determined to stay on top of my goal – I was going to feel better. On my way back from the CVS, I felt like I could fall asleep while driving, so I sped up to get home faster. I blasted my music and revved my engine. I revved my engine right through a red light.

I had to swerve to avoid crushing the baby in the stroller with the weight of my Honda SRV. I crashed into the curb. The mother was screaming, so horrified, almost witnessing the end of her newborn child’s life. YOU ALMOST KILLED HIM.

I was panting and shaking and suddenly, for the first time in months, very awake. She screamed and screamed at me. I drove away, every cell in my body vibrating.

As I drove away, I started laughing. And then I was crying. And then I was laughing again because I was crying. I WAS CRYING. I WAS CRYING. I WAS CRYING.

I hadn’t felt this good in months.