There are two versions of me: the one people love and the one that tried to kill me quietly. Mania: A Memoir Told in Mood Swings is not a soft story about healing. It is a raw confession from a woman who grew up fighting a war inside her mind while everyone around her blamed her attitude, her sexuality, her smart mouth, and her spirit. I went from stomping my feet in third grade to defending my mother from her husband with a gold lamp. I grew up in a house where church was a threat, love was twisted, and depression hid behind closed curtains and filthy rooms. Nobody asked why I was angry. They just punished the symptoms and missed the sickness. This memoir is a ride through manic highs that felt holy and crashes that felt like death, the kind of mood swings that turn a little girl into a fighter before she ever got a chance to be soft. It is about trying to find love in girls who were just as broken as I was, using alcohol like medicine, and drugs like silence. It is about being told you going to burn in hell while living in hell every day. If you have ever felt misunderstood, mislabeled, or misdiagnosed, if you have ever tried to save someone who hurt you, if you have ever laughed while crying because the pain was too loud to leave alone, this book will feel like a mirror with a pulse. This is not a story where I pretend to be strong the whole time. This is a story where I show you everything, the rage, the humor, the trauma, the mistakes, and the truth I had to die inside myself to learn: feeling good was not the cure. Feeling good was the symptom. Welcome to the inside of my mind. Hold on.