I'm a therapist who's been hospitalized for a manic episode. I worried about the stigma at work — then, another patient recognized me.

Courtesy of Patty Spinks

A year after my first psychiatric hospitalization in Queens, New York, I returned to my job at an alcoholism treatment center in San Francisco. A year later, in 1975, I had a second manic episode, which landed me in Langley Porter Hospital.