"So, why were you going to Palo Alto again?" He asks me, one of the first questions of the evening.
"I went to Stanford's psychiatric outpatient clinic." I explain to him how the clinic is connected to the hospital, and the doctors rotate in and out, performing different duties depending on whether they're working at G2P or at the outpatient clinic.
He seems momentarily confused.
"I have a mental illness," I confess. "It's a rare form of bipolar disorder."
"Bipolar disorder?"
"Yes, but it's a little more complicated than that. It's like a cross between bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, although it tends not to be as severe as schizophrenia, and the prognosis is better for someone like me."
"I don't see it."
"Well, right now, I'm almost symptom-free."
"No, I don't believe it."
That's one response that you can get when you tell someone you have a psychiatric disorder. Denial. Not the best answer.
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