Today was different though. Today was the day she told us what she had been workin’ on. She waited until we both sat down, then took a breath like she wanted to make sure she chose the right words. She folded her hands in her lap and looked straight at me, not scared or pityin’ me, but just lookin’ at me like I deserved answers.
“I wanted to take this month slowly,” she said, “because it was important not to rush or label anything too quickly. We ran the psychological assessments, and we tracked your symptoms over the last four weeks. Now that I have a full picture, I want to talk to you about what we’re seeing.”
I leaned back on the couch. I ain’t say nothin’. I didn’t trust myself to.
Toni slid her hand across my thigh and rested it there.
Dr. Ellington kept her voice calm.
“You’re not crazy, Kay’Lo,” she said. “Nothing about what you’re experiencing makes you less of a man or less in control of your life. What you’re dealing with is something many people deal with, and the good news is there are ways to treat it.”
My chest felt tight, like her words was pressin’ on parts of me nobody ever touched before.
“We’re looking at something called schizoaffective disorder,” she said gently. “It means you have mood episodes, like depression or elevated energy, and you also have symptoms that fall on the schizophrenia spectrum. The combination can make your thoughts feel loud or scattered. It can make your emotions jump from overwhelmed to shut down. It can make you hear your thoughts in a way that feels like they’re not yours. It can make the world feel too loud or too quiet. It can make stress hit you harder than it hits other people.”
I stared at her. I didn’t react, but my jaw clenched a lil’.
Toni’s fingers stroked my knuckles slow, like she knew that first part hit me somewhere deep.
“It doesn’t mean you’re broken,” Dr. Ellington continued. “It means your brain processes the world differently. You’ve been living with this for a very long time. Probably since childhood. You weren’t diagnosed because you learned how to push through it, and because nobody around you ever looked close enough to understand what was happening.”
That part made somethin’ in my chest pull tight.
Childhood.
Yeah…There was a lot of shit I pushed down from back then.
“So what do that mean?” I asked ‘cause I needed her to get to the point.
“It means we can treat it,” she said simply. “There are medications that help stabilize mood and quiet intrusive thoughts. One of the first-line medications we use for people with both mood symptoms and schizophrenia-spectrum symptoms is called Latuda. It helps regulate the chemical imbalance that’s causing the emotional swings and the racing thoughts. Sometimes we also use a mood stabilizer alongside it, depending on how severe the episodes are.”
Toni squeezed my hand harder and kissed my knuckles. Her eyes was full of this gentle pride I ain’t understand, like me sittin’ here and listenin’ made her love me even deeper.
“Baby, this don’t make you nothin’ but human,” she whispered. “You still my man. You still strong as hell. This just somethin’ that been on your back for years, and now you finally got a name for it.”
I shook my head slow ‘cause even though all the shit she was sayin’ made sense, it didn’t feel real yet.
“You tellin’ me I been like this since a kid?” I asked the doctor.
She nodded.
“You learned how to survive it,” she said. “You learned how to push through without ever understanding that the pain, the fear, the anger, the confusion… none of that was your fault. Your brain got overwhelmed, and you did what you had to do to keep moving. But it doesn’t have to be that way anymore.”
My stomach twisted. Not from fear or anger. Just… realization, like somethin’ heavy finally slid into place inside me.
She handed me a small packet of papers.
“This is your treatment plan,” she said. “We’ll start with the Latuda. One pill a day with food. It can help calm the racing thoughts and stabilize your moods. It won’t change who you are. It won’t take away your personality. It will just help you feel like you’re not fighting your own mind anymore.”
I ain’t say shit for a minute. I couldn’t.
Toni leaned into me and kissed my cheek soft.
“It’s okay, baby,” she said. “You not alone in this.”
I let out a breath I ain’t know I was holdin’, then nodded once.
It wasn’t ’cause I fully understood this shit or that I fully accepted it. But ‘cause I trusted Toni, and I trusted the fact that whatever this was, it finally made sense.
