giulia wanted to have her say, and i wanted to have mine. i rationalized that the side effects were better than the psychosis. i scheduled us for yoga and painting class; giulia stayed in bed all day. as the one living through the lens of suicidal depression, giulia's voice obviously mattered. it was her body and her mind. she was the one taking the pills, so her insistence that she had a say in her treatment was natural. but that insistence often felt at the expense of my perspective-- the caregiver, the one the doctors entrusted to get giulia to appointments and make sure she was taking her pills each night. i lived and breathed alongside giulia's depression, studying it for patterns and clues for what was working and what wasn't. it wasn't my diagnosis, but it consumed my life. giulia and i were working for the same goal, but in opposition, deadlocked in an unspoken resentment over whose voice mattered more. one day, she took herself off her most disliked pill, the one with the worst side effects. she didn't ask anyone for permission to d