Why did Julie lose her job?

Choices:
A. Because she lost her mind.
B. Because she was hospitalized.
C. not enough information
D. Because she couldn't trust herself anymore.
Because she lost her mind.
“Please remember me to myself!”
When sliding toward mania in 2016, I begged this of my therapist. He cocked his head.
“What do you mean?”
I had no idea—on a conscious level—what I was asking for, just that I felt in a desperate sense that the self I knew was slipping away. An inability to recognize myself either in my writing or in reflecting upon my own actions was taking over.
And then…? I didn't care.
I wanted to kiss girls.
Which is fine—just not something I ordinarily do.
I wanted to drink, smoke.
Again, fine—but not something I ordinarily do.
“Do I seem…okay?” I asked a colleague at work. A woman I barely knew. Insanely, I thought that since she worked with disabled students, many of whom struggled with mental illness, she would know mania when she saw it.
This was a rather foolish assumption—especially since she's an educator, not a psychiatrist, especially with how skilled I am at wearing the mask of calm, the face of sanity.
“You seem great, Julie. Cheery. Professional as always.”
I let her reassurance placate me. Wanted to be placated.
Yet, within months I lost my job. And not only that, but a chance at a scholarship, two really important long term friendships—relationships I'd enjoyed since high school. I was hospitalized three times between September and February. I lost my ability to trust myself, lost my mind.
It is now a little over two years since I first felt that sliding. Twenty-six months since I knew that somewhere in the deepest parts of who I am, I was slipping. Nine seasons since I begged Dr. Poe, “Remember me to myself!”
I'm still recuperating.
Yes.
I have felt like I wasn't me.