noting that she identifies as homosexual even though she still pursues relationships with men. She was known for stealing the girlfriends of her male friends. She was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for a second time when she was 24 years old, where she stayed for four and a half months. Symptoms of a drug-induced psychotic break had been intensifying, and friends were concerned that she might be suicidal. She claims to have only felt safe and protected once her works had been published and her fame was secured. Final years and death After Wallach was released from her second visit to the mental institution, she went to stay with her mother back in Kiryat Ono. Her mother suffered from Parkinson's disease and Wallach became her primary caregiver. She did not care much for her mother; her medical records suggest that Wallach was responsible for some of the bruising on her body. She lived off of her mother's financial support since she did not have a steady job. Wallach attempted suicide in 1974 but refused hospitalization. Wallach began performing her poetry with a rock band she formed with two of her male musician friends. They would not let her sing her poetry, only recite it, because she was so out of tune. Wallach excited crowds with her provocative clothing and explicitly sexual poems. In 1981, at the age of 36, Wallach found a lump in her breast and was diagnosed with breast cancer. She refused treatment for two years, believing the same sort of spirit that drove her poetry would also aid in her recovery. One morning she awoke with a pain in her chest and all of her bones aching, finally spurring her decision to seek treatment. She met a doctor in Kiryat Ono who told her she had less than eight years to live. From this point on she continued treatment, soliciting friends to help administer her medicine. They described her as being very lonely during this time; her rough demeanor had been substituted for something gentler and more childlike. She died on September 26, 1985. Literary career Wallach knew from a young age that she wanted to be a writer. When she was kicked out of school in the tenth grade, the headmistress cited Wallach as having neglected her studies in preference to doodling and writing poems. At the age of eighteen she first attempted to be