She and I spent many hours talking about why she got well, about what made the difference. In fact, she was included in, and the inspiration for, both of my studies: my study of how people with depression and manic depression get by on a day to day basis, and my study of how people with severe mood instability get well, stay well and regain control over their lives. These studies gave me the information I needed to write my books, The Depression Workbook: A Guide to Living with Depression and Manic Depression and Living Without Depression and Manic Depression: A Guide to Maintaining Mood Stability.

As I noted earlier, prior to her first episode, her life was stressful and she had little support. Through most of her hospitalization she had little support. But toward the end of her hospitalization, several things changed.

There was a volunteer at the hospital and a staff member who began to take a special interest in her. They listened to her for hours and hours. She was not used to sharing. She interrupted her monologue with apologies for talking too much. But these two dedicated supporters encouraged her to continue, literally for hours on end. She says she had never felt heard before.

In an interlude between episodes at the hospital, she started what may have been the first support group for mental patients ever begun by a psychiatric patient. It was called Mental Health Fellowship. She began the group with the help of a very fine psychiatrist who took a special interest in her case. Even after she was discharged from the hospital, she went back regularly to attend meetings of the support group and to visit patients who had become as close as family through the years. There was another factor that we can't really assess, but that needs to be mentioned. One of the nurses started clandestinely giving her a high dosage multi-vitamin. Perhaps chemicals in her body that had gone awry somehow fixed themselves. Who will ever know?

Perhaps it was her own strong will and determination that made her well. We know it wasn't medications. There were none that were effective in the treatment of manic depression in those days. No one was talking about self help. When she got out of the hospital, she faced some serious challenges. Some so immense that they would have sent most of our moods wildly out of control or scurrying back to the safety of a bleak hospital situation. She seemed to have a sense of the importance of support. This was in 1955, before anyone was really thinking about support for the mentally ill. But somehow my mother knew how important it was to her on-going wellness.

She came out of the hospital wanting to be a mom again. But in the intervening years, we had all grown up, just two of my brothers were left in high school, we were not used to having a mother around and were very independent. My heart sinks when I think of the inadvertent mistreatment and lack of understanding she got from me and my siblings that made her transition back into the family much more difficult. Imagine trying to re-enter a household where you had left a group of children and came back to almost grown adolescents. She struggled and regained her space in the family with little help from us. Adolescence is not a good time to expect much understanding or empathy. To our credit, as we moved into adulthood, we became much more supportive and an on-going source of pleasure for her. When she died at the age of 82, she left behind her role as matriarch of a huge family including her 5 children, 24 grandchildren and 16 great grand children who adored her.

Recovering from a devastating illness, she was faced with the stigma that is the constant companion of anyone who has been diagnosed with a psychiatric illness or spent time in a mental institution. She took more educational courses as she went through the heart breaking process of being refused job after job.

Finally, someone took a chance. They needed a school lunch manager at a school in New Haven, CT-a junior high and high school in a section of the city that had the highest rates of crime and delinquency. Under her guidance, the staff prepared healthy meals that appealed to the kids, causing a rapid rise in the number of students in the hot lunch program. She took the time to know each student by name, to understand their circumstances and to prepare foods that were ethnically and nutriously appropriate to their needs. Some of the mothering time she lost with us, she bestowed on those very needy kids.

And then she began to systematically connect with people in the community. She met people through her work as a dietician, in her church, in the local grange and through a variety of volunteer activities. Sometimes the stigma created by her long hospitalization caused her to be ostracized and rejected. People made rude comments that hurt her to the core. I remember hearing her crying herself to sleep at night. But she pressed on.

There were several key ways she built her support network. She kept in touch with people. Not overwhelmingly, by constantly bothering them, but by a quick phone call to check in, dropping by with a loaf of freshly baked bread, running an errand for someone or sending a card. Before long people began to forget that this vivacious woman had ever been in a mental hospital. She was always there for others-and then when she needed support it was always there for her. If she liked someone (she almost always did), she made sure they stayed in her life by keeping in touch and making plans to spend time together. Because of this her life was very rich. I don't know if she developed this support systems intentionally, but she certainly did it right. Her on-going wellness was dependent on her strong connection with others, so that became the focus of her life. It not only kept her well, but as it evolved her life became richer and richer.