My Bumble match told me I could stay with him at his penthouse in Switzerland, I threw three designer swimsuits into a backpack—what else does a person need at a Swiss ski resort in January? —grabbed my passport and ran to the nearest subway station.

It didn’t matter that in some part of my mind I knew my passport had expired in December, or that I had under $100 in my bank account, or that I had no plane ticket, or that three designer swimsuits wasn’t exactly appropriate attire for a winter weekend at a Swiss chalet. No, in the moment all that mattered was that I finally was That Girl—the one who could just jet off to Zermatt to meet a sexy Austrian boy because she felt like it.

“Babe...” I text Marcel, my Bumble match, a few minutes later, before I’d even made it to the subway station. “I swear I was on my way to the airport when I realized, my passport expired! We were supposed to be making out in an igloo right now, but you should totally swing by New York, and we can get a hotel together and…”

“That is definitely possible,” came the immediate response.

Little did I know that Marcel—who was, it turned out, exactly as advertised: a scion of political wealth, former male model and 24-year-old neurosurgeon about to start his residency at Yale—little did I know that he would actually show up in New York to see me, as promised, six weeks later.

During the ensuing six weeks of nightly four-hour phone calls, I could be an imaginary version of myself. It didn’t matter that I’d been too caught up in my daydreams to attend my MFA residency, that no, my last name wasn’t Van Der Leiden, and I didn’t have a place in the Hamptons. It’s not about who I am, I would tell myself every morning as I sat at my mirror zealously applying Gucci flora from a rollerball. Who do I want to be?

“So where would you take me if I came to visit you?” Marcel asked on the phone in his polished Austrian accent.

“My friend has a country home up in the Catskills, we can go for the weekend,” I smiled, then listed a slew of Michelin Starred restaurants I would take us to, and all the speakeasies and rooftops we would visit. Over the course of the next six weeks the version of myself that I wanted to be blurred with my understanding of reality.

Hypomania is thrilling and intoxicating. Before the disease spirals out of control, there is an otherworldly quality, one in which I am the ingenue in my own scripted reality, like I’m living out the character I was born to play. The hardest part, of course, is reeling in the mania before Princess Anne turns into Circe.

Marcel, meanwhile, was actually from the world I coveted—he flew to Milan to have his suits tailored, he lived in a penthouse in Zermatt. He was like a representative from the other side of some invisible barrier, an emissary from my daydreams, asking me to join him over there.

Most importantly, he adored the carefully curated image I had invested months of my life into creating. This fake real version of myself—constructed with the help of Instagram—had it all: she was beautiful, a successful writer making it in New York. And she had money. My fantasy self was reeling in a modern-day Prince.

My previous bout of mania, six years earlier, had resulted in a psychotic break that lasted months and landed me in extensive stays in various psychiatric hospitals. For many people with bipolar, their mania is more manageable—episodes might last days, or a couple weeks—but for me it was ruinous, I’d ended up living in a dreamworld.

“My boyfriend Marcel flies in from Vienna today,” I said to my psychiatrist Dr. Wild, “he’s getting on an intercontinental flight just to meet me.”

Dr Wild nodded, knitting his brow—he had never heard of Marcel before. At the time my bipolar had seemed largely under control for the last six years, so I was only seeing Dr. Wild once a month, and this whole scenario had sprung up quickly. 

“He’s a Hapsburg, you know,” I said. My eyes widened. “Like, the Hapsburgs.” This was, of course, untrue, but it felt true to me at the time.

“You’re dating Austrian royalty?” He looked concerned.

“Yes. And I booked us a Valentine’s Day dinner at Umawakamaru in Chelsea. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world.”

Though, I’d only seen Dr. Wild a few times by then, he was immediately able to see what was going on. “Maddy,” he said. “I think you’re delusional.”

“Who wouldn’t be a little delusional, Dr. Wild, I’m falling in love! Can’t you just be happy for me?” It was hard to fathom that my mania might be returning. I was taking my medication as prescribed. Everything had seemed more or less under control for years. The only change—which apparently was more than enough—was that I’d recently been diagnosed with ADHD and begun taking a mild stimulant.

“No, Maddy. I think you’re having a manic episode.” Wild is dapper, handsome, and young, and this somehow made it more difficult to hear this new beguiling psychiatrist tell me that I was unwell again. “Can you call Marcel and cancel the trip?”

“I...” I glanced down at my phone and checked the time. “He boarded his flight two hours ago.”

Dr. Wild gazed off into the distance for a moment and inhaled deeply.

In the hotel lobby six hours later, I sat on a sofa, staring at the door. Was he real? Was he coming? Was I clinically delusional? Then, to my amazement, Marcel walked in—tall, olive skinned, brown eyes shining. He was dressed in head-to-toe black cashmere, wheeling a black hard top suitcase behind him. He was beautiful, and he was real. 

I raced towards him; all reservations gone. “Marcel—you’re here!”

“I would have brought you flowers,” he said, “but I didn’t want to be late.”

I kissed him square on the mouth. “You are perfect just the way you are.”

That night, I fell asleep holding him in my arms. “I can’t wait to spend all my time with you,” he whispered as he nodded off.

In the morning, I walked down to Stone Street to get us coffees and pastries. Returning a little later, I found Marcel dressed, and looking concerned.

I had promised to pay for the hotel, but my ID was expired, and the front desk couldn’t process my card without an ID, so Marcel had put the whole week on his card. Though I’d promised to pay him back the following day.

He asked if there was some way I could pay him back now. I suppose he was starting to sense that everything was not as it seemed.

The only problem was all the money I’d budgeted for our week together, my half of our luxurious dinners and drinks, had been spent in the last two days in a vicious manic spending spree...nearly $5,000.  A new designer wardrobe and seven matching lingerie sets had made so much sense at the time, the only problem was now I only had a few hundred dollars left.

“I don’t have enough,” I confessed, blushing, and glancing down. 

Marcel’s eyes widened, and then he squinted at me. “But these dinners and drinks with all your friends this week, the—how were you planning on paying for your half of all of this?”

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” Marcel said.

“What, no, please.” I collapsed on the bed and convulsed into sobs. “I can’t lose you Marcel. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Please, please—”

Marcel stared on, understandably confused, and perhaps frightened.

I gathered my things and walked to the door, tears streaming down my face.

The next day, I felt worse. Sobbing uncontrollably all morning.

At last, I texted him the truth: I have bipolar disorder. I’m in a hypomanic episode. I’m really not feeling well, I can’t stop crying. I’m sorry, I’m really sorry...

Fortunately, as a neurosurgeon, Marcel had extensive familiarity with brain science, and the meaning of my diagnosis. Go see a specialist, he texted back immediately.

So, the day after Valentine’s Day, rather than dinner at Umawakamaru, I walked to Metropolitan hospital and sat in the noisy, over-lit ER, tears streaming down my face. That night, I slept on a plastic slat in the triage room where the on-call confirmed that I was hypomanic. 

Looking back at the preceding six months, I should have seen the signs. Quitting my job, deferring my start date for graduate school, my delusions of grandeur. For the second time in my twenties, my life had been knocked off course in a manic episode.

But I’d bounced back quicker this time, and caught it faster, in large part thanks to Dr. Wild. We’d managed to head it off only days after I’d started spiraling. I’d started a new job, a commitment to return to graduate school in the summer, and had even starting dating—no Hapsburgs, alas.

In the end we were both chimera’s—Prince Charming and Countess Olenska—neither exactly as the other had hoped or dreamed of. But it didn’t matter. The lust faded; my feet stood on the cobblestones of reality again. Before the empire I’d built had collapsed around us we were two souls seeking desire and fulfillment and we had found each other. I stirred the experience in my mind and pulled strings of learning from it.

I kept a photo of Marcel in a folder on my desktop, remembering how the Austrian half prince had fallen for my illusory self. Could I take the fantastical version I had lured him in with and really, really become her? Dreams of fame and recognition seemed far away but I found myself fueled by pure inspiration.