My first flatmate after moving overseas may have been the craziest person I have ever met. She was a coworker and, at the time and one of my first friends in the country, and she seemed normal enough- until we signed a lease. The first red flag should have been her mother. Bipolar Chick was her mid-20s, but she’d moved overseas with her folks, and had been living with them; one of the reasons she was so keen to move in with me was she claimed she wanted out of their house. That, in itself, seemed normal- why yes, an adult would like their own space where their mommy doesn’t enquire as to their whereabouts. But things quickly took a turn for the insane on move in day, when her parents pulled up with a carload of her stuff. Throughout the unloading process, her mother glared at me without saying a word. After one more huffy sniff as she went outside for another load, Bipolar Chick’s dad pulled me aside to tell me her mother was ‘a little unhappy’ that I’d ‘stolen’ their daughter. Um, ok.

I really should have realized right then that the crazy apple doesn’t even try to fall far from the crazy tree. First came redecorating. At first, it was fun: we went to a fabric store and I made curtains, we got some funky sofa cushions, normal. Then one day she declared she wanted to paint. Without consulting me, she started the project, painting cabinet doors and walls bright, eyeball searing shades of turqouise and yellow and fushia, until I was basically living in Willy Wonka’s Nightmare. It wouldn’t have been so bad except she wasn’t particularly talented about it- she didn’t tape edges or anything, the paint was uneven and splotchy, and at some point she’d decided our perfectly fine wood baseboards and doors were the wrong shade, and had slopped baby-poo brown all over them. Then came the candles; first, one or two, then they started taking over the place. Every flat surface was covered in them, even though her cat (we’ll get to the cats shortly) loved to push them off, shattering the ‘decorative glass holders’ she also sprinkled around the flat.

She also started amassing bits and pieces from her mom’s house and friends cast offs- so by the end of it, there was no clear ‘design’ just a mass of conflicting florals and patterns and genres, as if Laura Ashley had done something horrible and unholy with Rainbow Brite in the middle of my living room. Next, there were the cats. Bipolar Chick had one when she moved in with me, one very small, well behaved cat she was loathe to leave with her parents. Even though I’ll allergic, I agreed- with an understanding that Bipolar Chick would be responsible for vacuuming regularly and that the cat was to be kept out of my room. After just a few months, I arrive home to find she’s adopted a second cat- surprise!- who’s also extremely fluffy. This cat was also almost as crazed as her owner; she liked to pounce and bite your feet when she felt neglected or hungry. Which was all the time, as shortly after this, Bipolar Chick did the only logical thing for a single cat lady with nesting feelings to do: she got a boyfriend and spent every waking moment over at his house.

During the week, she was around a bit more, only spending two to three nights at his, but on weekends she’d disappear for 72 hours straight, not checking with me first that someone would be available to feed her cats or change their litter. When I finally snapped and told her I wasn’t going to provide kitty-care without notice forever, her response was to adopt a third cat (this one with a creepy lazy eye that made me think of it as the Zombie Cat), and relocate with boyfriend to our sofa- where they never left. And where she would sigh and make heavy-handed comments about how they really wanted some ‘privacy’ if I dared to be in the flat when they were. Of course, she was also bipolar. I didn’t know she was diagnosed or on meds until after we’d moved in, but at first, I tried not to judge. Then I realized she wasn’t REALLY on meds. She had, at some point, been diagnosed and prescribed medication, but by the time I knew her, she had decided she knew best and instead bought high doses of Prozac over the counter (the wonder of living in a certain part of the world- you can buy basically anything over the counter with the right money). Which she didn’t take regularly.

Her mother constantly badgered her about the drugs, saying it was a ‘weakness’ and she should deal on her own, so she’d go through cycles of weaning herself off them by just not taking them for days at a time. Or else she’d forget to stock up, the stores wouldn’t sell to her, and she’d be cold turkey until she could get more. When she’d go back on them she’d Prozac-load, taking more than recommended at one time. And through it all, she liked to drink. A lot. She’d make herself rum and Coke after rum and Coke every night after work, or else consume at least the majority of a bottle of wine (she was a generous alcoholic though- she’d make me a drink or pour me a glass too, as if I had a glass then she wasn’t drinking alone and she could claim we’d ‘split’ whatever she’d consumed. I’m not a big drinker though and would usually decline, or else sip one glass all night long). On weekends, she’d  pack it away, and she would, going through the same cycle each time: bubbly and the life of the party, then hating everyone in sight saying terrible things at top volume (sometimes even calling people not present to rain abuse at them), then, inevitably, the vomiting.

Through it all was her mother, who, despite only meeting me in passing occassionally, had a deep and powerful hatred of me. I kept trying to figure out why, but could never really pinpoint it. She liked to say horribly mean things to other people in front of me. My favorite was when, after Bipolar Chick’s brother came to visit and we hit it off, their mother told a friend that he was clearly interested in me, but he’d never do anything about it because I was fat and he knew she wouldn’t approve. The friend was sitting in a lawn chair on the other side of me- mother had to lean across me to deliver this zinger. And then the lies would start: I’d hear from Bipolar Chick that Mommy Dearest claimed I’d said such-and-such about her to so-and-so. If pressed, she’d name a time and a place- and repeatedly, they were locations and times where I had been demonstrably somewhere else (once i wasn’t even in the country). Before long it progressed to Mommy saying I was spreading tales about Bipolar Chick, which led to paranoid confrontations. Bipolar Chick started listening at my door.

One evening, while on the phone with a mutual friend, trying to smooth out her latest escapade (she’d packed herself a goody bag of liquor after the friends birthday party, including four bottles of decent wine, a case of beer, and three full bottles of hard liquor from their party supplies, earlier in the evening, then hidden it in the house so she could take it home at the end of the night. She’d claimed to be ‘too drunk to go home’ and had tossed my cell in the pool, so we had both ended up sleeping at the friends house. The next morning she’d gone home without me, and when I returned, I discovered her stash and immediately told her to return it or I would), she burst in the door, snarling, to scream at me. It was so bad my friend on the phone’s mother could hear her screaming through the phone, and demanded my friend come and pick me up immediately. This went on for a while, until I started going down the block to sit on the curb to even call my mother.

After the liquor debacle, things went downhill- Bipolar Chick started a Facebook campagin of status messages, alluding to the horrible girl in her life, but she wouldn’t name names as she’s a bigger person, in between crying jags and tearful demands for hugs from me. Then, one day at work, she sent me a Facebook message telling me to move out (I should note: she was literally down the hall at our office when she sent this). She wanted me out within two weeks, at which point she claimed her father would be changing the locks. When I’d left, I’d asked for my half of the damage deposit, as well as payment for my half of things we’d purchased together- like the sofa. She paid, and I went on my merry way.

Actually, I was the terror roommate in this story, not the girl I lived with.

I started college this past September and moved into the dorms on campus. My roommate was randomly assigned (let’s call her T). Two weeks before the official move-in date, I called T and informed her that I had a couple of mental disorders (Bipolar Disorder Type II and PTSD) and, if she’d like to, she should put in a request to change roommates now. She was quiet for a long time before asking nervously, “Why?” I laughed and said, “Ah. I have problems. That’s all.”

The days leading up to move-in, I bombarded her with weird questions and hypothetical situations via Facebook and email, or I would call, make plans to meet with her, and suddenly cancel. The first week of living on campus, before school actually started, I went to all the mandatory events, and promised T I would be social and go out, as well as exercise with her (exercise having been demanded by my therapist on campus to help with my disorders). After the first week, I rarely left the room, always had music blaring, left the lights on, left my keys in the door and ate food without asking first, assuming that she was eating mine as well, since I had said that it was acceptable. She was forced to deal with an emotional breakdown and several days I called “nothing days,” where I stayed curled up in bed all day, facing the wall, under the blanket and just stared blankly when anyone tried to get me to do anything.

On the more “high end” days, I was overly energetic and highly irritable, despite being on lithium and trazodone and prone to oversharing; T was incredibly patient and listened when I would talk about my past, my family, my noted lack of a social life, my fear of others and why individuals like myself were never meant to be happy. She even talked me up out of much darker, bleaker moods. One of the worst things she’s had to deal with is my obsessive cleaning habits. I’ve managed to regulate myself to the weekends, when she’s not here, but I’ll thoroughly scrub down everything, vacuum, dust and straighten/organize for hours. T has even gone so far as to help gently motivate me to attend counseling sessions again and she’s on top of making sure I eat normally, take my medication every day and get outside several times, even if it’s just to throw away trash in the dumpster.

T will even go out into the hall if the other girls in the dorm are getting too loud and ask them to quiet down on the days I can’t handle a lot of excess noise. She had the option of moving into another dorm or living with another roommate for winter term, but she refused because she wants to make sure I’m okay. I’m pretty damn lucky to have a roommate who’s understanding and is trying to help me work through my issues, even when I try to keep her from it because it’s not fair to be burdened with that at 18. I’m 19, I should know better.

So I’m a pretty sucky roommate, but I’m working on it.

MVWR was also my boss, E. I’d just moved for the job, and she “adopted” me as her own, which was fine when I was first getting my feet, not so much when she was acting like I was her BFF after having met her a month before. She lived with her parents, who she hated, and when I was looking for a flat she guilt tripped and suggested so much that eventually I let her strong arm me into looking for one together. Her mother instantly hated me and started telling all sorts of lies about me around town (stories that were easily fact checked to be untrue). I’d often get calls from E, demanding to know if I’d said such and such that her mother was claiming I had. E was also incredibly bipolar, but would often forget to take her meds. When we moved in together, she had one cat. I’m allergic, but figured I’d be ok with just one. One multipled into three over the course of eight months, without ever asking me about it. But the real breaking point was her drinking. E was the girl at the party who’d drink to much, say horrible things to people, dance on the coffee table topless, then puke on the rug. And somehow, because I lived with her, I was her keeper.

The breaking point came when she helped herself to a goody bag at the end of a friends party: several bottles of liquor, a case of beer, bottles of wine — she made a carrier bag and walked out with it. I discovered it the next day (as she had gotten so drunk we’d stayed at the host’s house that night, and she’d gotten up in the morning and left without me, claiming to be too hungover to come get me when I called her), and confronted her about it. After that, she stopped talking to me (at work and at home) and started making trouble for me professionally. One night, talking about what to do about this situation with a mutual friend on the phone, she barged into my room frothing at the mouth, screaming, having evesdropped. It got to the point I would walk down the block to call my mom. She eventually kicked me out of our shared apartment over Facebook while she was sitting across the office. I wasn’t sorry to go.

C and I decided to move in together when we both found that we were getting out of long term relationships and needed places to live.  So whenever she was moody or upset or downright bitchy I chalked it up to the stress of a breakup, especially because she seemed so normal the rest of the time. Wrong! C was certifiably bipolar and damn proud of the fact that she was not taking medication. In her view medication was for wusses and nothing but sheer mental muscle should get you through the day. This from the same girl who bragged about how whatever music she listened to in the morning would set her mood for the day. When she was on a high she’d drive piss drunk, buy a ton of stuff she didn’t have money for and call it an investment (like $300 worth of makeup) and would berate her superiors at work for not doing her job for her – this last one she just couldn’t grasp why that was bad and would complain at length about them at home. When she was low she was usually straight up mean. After we had gotten to a certain point of crazy, she would call me at work and scream whatever nasty, personal, hurtful things she could think of and then hang up on me. For no reason other than she was having a bad day. I changed jobs and didn’t give her my new number.

Since neither of us had anything after our respective breakups I asked her if she wanted to go in on some inexpensive furniture with me. She said yes and then backed out at the last minute forcing me to do some creative financing. When I asked her about it she gave me a completely nonsensical answer and then asked if I was okay with it. I said I was a little disappointed but it worked out and all was fine. She proceeded to start screaming at me for being disappointed in her and how could I say that and she’s Daddy’s little girl and… wait, what? She did typical other roommate things like leaving unwrapped used sanitary napkins on top of the trash, throwing parties in the middle of the night which would wake me up and our kitchen reeked of stale beer that she would never clean up.

But the real kicker was her boyfriend, J. Our apartment building had a balcony that over looked our parking spot and we were only two stories up. I was sitting on the couch one day and I heard J yelling for her through the open door. I looked down and he was gripping his foot with blood gushing everywhere. He said she was on her way up, he’d just cut it on a can or something and needed her to take him to the hospital.  Just then she walked through the door and I yelled, “Your boyfriend needs to go to the ER right now!”  She gave a big sigh, sat down on the couch and started leafing through a magazine.  I ran and got a towel and through it over the railing to him to wrap around his foot. She sighed again and said, “I am so tired of being taken advantage of by people. All people ever want is to use you. And really, I’m just sick of it.” I was too shocked to say anything. She finally got up and took him to the hospital and was back 30 minutes later. She’d told him she had to change out of her work clothes and grab something to eat and would be right back. Instead, she went to our neighbor’s apt to smoke a couple blunts and party for a few hours before picking J up from the ER.

I couldn’t move out fast enough.