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"Do not worry my little child," I distinctly heard in a loud, deep, but gentle voice. "You will be great some day. You will be famous. You will help a large number of people." As I stood before the spirea bush that bleak November day when I was seven years old with my eyes tightly closed, praying for the first time in my life, "Dear Father God, what must I do to make Mother love me?" I heard my answer, and when I opened my eyes, my entire body heaved in a huge convulsion, while the bush, stripped of its leaves for winter, burst aglow in shimmering tiny white blossoms of spring.

This vision was my first remembered break with reality. The religious overtone was the refrain that played out in all my serious manic episodes for decades, well into middle age. Religion, in the form of agape—the unconditional love of others—also has played a role in my ability today to accept my condition, exercise control over my feelings and even revel in my uniqueness.

I didn't get to this point, however, without serious emotional and physical pain. And I didn't get to this point without the extraordinary intervention of caring family, friends and medical professionals.

I endured decades of irrational terrors, depressions and isolation before I learned the patterns of my illness and how to anchor my racing thoughts. My childhood memories are exceptionally clear to me and particularly painful because I felt unloved and unlovable. The vision of the glowing bush became my first "secret" and sense of "mission." For the first time, I realized I was somehow different. Our family was far from religious and I had no reference to biblical tales at that age. Knowing that, and knowing what we do today about mental illness, that experience could be nothing other than my first manic moment. But no one in our immediate world recognized it as such, least of all me.