HandleStarts out as white noise, sort of like the sound of water running in my ears. I shake my head, desperately trying to remove the annoying sound, but it remains stubbornly stuck. I can imagine the static that should accompany the sound and when I close my eyes I can see a blood red version of it clouding my mind. My body shakes with a tremor. It's as if my very skin is trying to shake off the reality that threatens to swallow me. But I can't get rid of it because it's the sea; it's an ocean. It's the biggest, deepest, darkest ocean ever imagined and I'm right in the middle of it, not a life preserver or buoy in sight. And I kick and claw against the current but I can barely get half a breath of fresh, clear air. I feel like I'm being dragged down and there's no one there to save me. The white noise sucks me in as I squirm and wince. I struggle because I don't know what will happen, and because I know exactly what will happen, because it's all happened before. The last breath of clean, healthy air leaves my lungs. I'm going down. Beneath the cold, unforgiving waves of white noise, from the deep, dark depths of the ocean come the Voices. They are short and speak with a prolonged hiss. They whisper directly into my ears, disembodied mouths with sharp teeth and forked tongues licking me as they speak. “Stupid,” they tell me. "Stupid." "Bad." "Useless!" I throw my head, right, left, no, no. I don't want to hear it. Breathless and submerged, I'm still kicking my way back to the surface. I can do it, I think. I'm not that low. Kick! But the mouths have hands – cold, sharp hands – that grip me in a vice. They don't pull me. The white water is so thick that I sink alone. But they keep me still, helpless. "Imbecile!" Bed. The pillow under my head is damp and my head hurts and my face burns from the salt in my tears. Pushing myself up I looked around. There are no disembodied mouths, no terrible humanoid monsters. I'm in my room alone. In a panic, I trashed the place, but it's nothing a good cleaning can't fix. I feel empty. The catharsis is over and there is nothing left in me but a faint feeling of unease. Manic hallucinations always leave me like this. Slowly, I slip under the covers and tuck myself in. I'll get some sleep and then get cleaned up. At this point, I don't know whether to be happy or not. It's over and I'm not in danger of another episode for a few weeks, but the fact that it's happened again fills me with dread and shame. “It wasn't real,” I mutter to myself. “It wasn't real.”