G avi was on fire. Luckily he wasn’t literally on fire.
Although he’d done enough over-the-top things that it probably wouldn’t have surprised me to hear that something involving him and fire had happened at one point or another.
Gavi was no longer acutely manic and dangerous although his bipolar disorder wasn’t under perfect control. Many of the medications he’d tried had left him with intolerable side effects. So while his current regimen was well tolerated he was only willing to take his meds intermittently. This led to imperfectly treated symptoms. And while the fire was well controlled enough that no one was calling 911 his coals were still red hot under a thin layer of ash.
That was how he came to me — relatively calm but still smoldering and without too much hope from his parents or previous psychiatrist. Their goal was to see if a frum doctor could convince Gavi to take his medications regularly. It seemed like a lofty hope but I was up to the challenge.
