“That’s great, Mommy.” I replied, feeling proud of her even as my cheeks burned with embarrassment. My auntie agreed that I could use some time to myself. I’d come up to help relive some of the care-taking responsibilities from my auntie during the four days I had between finals. Knowingly she’d be more likely to take her sleeping pills if she felt in control of something I had her correct my spanish essays as I dispensed her nightly nose of sleeping pills, tranquilizers and anti-psychotics. She hadn’t slept in days before I had arrived and when she is deprived of sleep her paranoia and the torturous delusions become even more unbearable; the mania and sleeplessness are both a symptom and a cause of the delusions. I really wish there was a kinder word. I called my dearest most compassionate friend, a marriage and family therapist intern at some hippy school in the bay. “Is there a better word for ‘delusion’ or ‘hallucination’? Something kinder? More compassionate and respectful? Something that acknowledges that these experiences are my mother’s reality?”