I wrote this poem and gave it to my sister when she was manic and was still unable to truly communicate with me or anyone in my family. For some reason, I thought that by her reading it, she could understand the terrible pain that she was putting me through, however, after looking it over, all she did was smile and say something like "That's very nice, but you just don't understand me." Those words really hurt, and I remember running up to my room and crying. I truly felt like I had lost my sister. Today when my sister reads this poem she says that she can barely get through it without tears coming to her eyes. She says it is very painful for her to think that the people close to her cared about her so much and tried to help her, yet because of her mania all she did was ignore it all. Ultimately, it is the caring that got us through those terrible few months of my sister's mania, and I hope it will continue to keep us together as a family forever.