It's been over 11 years since you chose to leave us, and I still miss you every single day. You're the only one who really appreciated my sense of humor. I remember how you struggled, on a daily basis, with the demons you faced, wondering if anyone else suffered as you did.

Back then, very few people talked about bipolar disorder. Like mental illness in general, they believed that anyone with that diagnosis must be like a character from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the book by Ken Kesey that became the 1975 movie starring Jack Nicholson. Even the old name of the disease, manic depression, conjured up visions, right out of the movie, of straight jackets and institutionalized isolation. When people did dare to talk about the disease, it was in hushed tones, like it was something to be ashamed of.

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