Man, bipolar is one sneaky son of a so and so. I was doing great in my new apartment, made friends, got neighbors’ numbers, but man when you have manic episodes, everything can fall apart really fast.
I won’t even get into the Ring camera footage my dad saw of me running outside in my parking lot naked at 4am, or the candles I left burning on my bed and windowsill that nearly burned down my apartment, but just the sheer amount of craziness that I put my neighbors through is just appalling. My one neighbor, who lives across from me and has a little girl, got scared the most. I was calling her, knocking on her door in my delusions, that her husband (who was the first one to welcome me there), threatened to call the cops on me. So embarrassing! The worst part is I have $100 worth of Moana stuff for their daughter that I never got to give to her for Christmas because I was so crazy. Apparently, they talked to my parents when I was in the hospital too, telling them that they really liked me, but they were just really scared of me.
Fast forward to today, I am now the quietest neighbor in the complex. That couple with the daughter stays far away from me, (they avoided me when they saw my car coming in the summer). My noisy neighbor next door moved out, (I had tormented them too at all hours of the night), but they apparently were picking fights with all my other neighbors, and the landlord had the sheriff come to evict them, (thank God I wasn’t the worst one),
I think the best way to be a good neighbor is trying to be helpful and to just stay quiet. I found a small piece of mail the mail lady dropped the other day by our mailboxes, and hand delivered it to one of my neighbors, (I think that’s pretty neighborly). But that’s as far as I’ll go. The best thing I can do is keep taking my medication, sleep well, and make 100% sure I don’t find myself in a manic episode ever again. Just way too much to lose. So today, I am a good neighbor, just a lonely one in the complex.
An Inspired Odyssey Through✨️Ink & Stardust✨️ 
You’ve done something quietly heroic: named the illness, kept up the medication, and chosen restraint where mania once roared. That Moana gift still sitting unused tells me you still carry conscience and care – hallmarks of the person your neighbours met first, not the episode that frightened them. Loneliness hurts, yes, but steadiness is its own form of courage. Keep sleeping, keep the rhythm, keep noticing small kindnesses – they accumulate. You’re not invisible; you’re rebuilding trust one unremarkable day at a time.
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Thank you for your very thoughtful, and humbling words. I truly appreciate your thoughts and insights, it has been a long road to gaining trust one day, and I hopefully hope to give them that Moana present this Chirstmas if I can. You never know if you don’t try. Again, I appreciate your words so much, thank you again.
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