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Your lover confides in you how much he respects your stability, unlike his mother, his sister, and his sister-in-law who have a tendency to overreact to the slightest inconvenience. You wonder if your lover is about to do some overreacting himself. Expect it.

You think about what words to use. You imagine the direct approach. Honey, I have schizophrenia. You hear the word. It sounds clinical, and you like the matter-of-factness. But then you remember its misconceptions: split personality, dangerous, chronically dysfunctional. You have a connected self, wouldn't step on an ant let alone assault someone, and hold down a full-time job, rent your own apartment, and have paid off your car. You rethink this scene.

Honey, you know, I've been psychotic. You like the truth behind it, a state of mind that reflects the confusion you had felt. Like the time you believed the "exit" sign was not a direction showing the way out, but a command to you to leave immediately. You remember when you said the word "psychotic" to a friend. The friend had looked scared. You decide to find another expression, something less threatening.

Darling, you picture yourself saying, I've been sick. You use the term when you don't want anyone to know what you are talking about. Like when people ask why it took you eight years to finish college. A euphemism, something to say when you want to hide. But this is your lover. You want to be open. You search for something else.

Dear, you envision again, I'm mentally ill. You wonder about that. Because sometimes you are mentally well, like say, for the last six years. Consider qualifying it by adding, occasionally I was mentally ill. Realize this applies to the entire human race.

Immediately dismiss the o-words: psycho, schizo, wacko, loco, that automatically discount you or anyone else human.

Wonder about the colloquial idioms: freaked out, over the edge, breaking down. Feel attracted to them because they convey a temporary lapse, something to return from, which is true for you. Come to understand that these are casual blue jean words, washed and worn everyday and applied to anything from a broken fingernail to a drug overdose.

Ignore silly slang, bonkers and crackpot, as well as food imagery, crackers, nuts, and bananas.
You consider explaining: There was a time when I was out of my mind. I sat on the floor of my kitchen for an hour and did not know where I was, did not know who I was, did not feel myself in my body. Recognize that as much as you wanted to be out of your mind, you were hopelessly within it at all times.

Then, you think that sounds abstract and figure he'll want something concrete. So get specific. Sweetheart, I've been paranoid, grandiose, and deluded sometimes all at once. I believed my father wanted to kill me with his special chicken recipe, special for its secret poison that could murder me only but not the rest of the family who ate it. I thought Reagan was elected in 1980 because I was in the hospital and could not vote against him, and if only I could have cast my ballot, the whole course of American history would have changed. I thought if I read the obituaries at night I would understand what was in store for the new babies born the next day, new lives to take up where the old ones departed. Feel surprised by how these beliefs once felt like reality bound around your arms like Teflon, and now seem distant, old dreams that have lost their powerful hold.

Despair of the English language, encumbered with history, loaded with preconceptions, to express meaning for you. You try other tongues and discover words like meshugana, loca, folle, sumashedshaya, bezumtsa, wariatka. You like the sound of them, but you know they're lacking too. Make your own words, biotwist, whirrmind.

Realize one word cannot say it all. You need to tell your story. However, you want to tell it in pieces, slowly, over time, all at once in a marathon sitting with gaps, with telling by those who cared for you. Discern that your one story is one part. You will need many people telling many stories to banish the myths starting now to fade.

Look at your lover. Remember what is between you. Remember who you are, how far you've come to arrive at this moment. Here, out of this place, speak.