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As I write this column, Kobe Bryant's defense team is trying to discredit his accuser by bringing up her history of suicide attempts, along with taking psychiatric meds. What if someone found out I pop a pill to maintain coherent thoughts, and decided to use this as fuel to slander me? In the slip of five minutes, I could lose my hard-won credibility. Will I be doomed to be only "passing for normal" in the eyes of others?

An incident on a city bus brought this home to me. The window was open on a cold November evening, so I shut it. The guy behind me opened it. Without thinking, I reached again to shut the window, and he grabbed my hand, pushing it away.

"Don't touch me!" I said, in a voice that startled me, because it was louder than usual. The bus driver turned around.

"Shut the window, it's freezing!" I implored the guy.

"Miss, I'll call the cops," the driver said.

"Fine, do that," I answered.

The passengers, not wanting an interrupted commute home, took the other guy's side. "I have asthma!" he claimed.

Coming down the aisle, the bus driver asked if I could just change my seat.

I moved up front to continue reading my Walter Dean Myers book. The woman in back of the guy became his new best friend: "Look, she has her face stuck in that book, there must be something wrong with her, it's taking her an hour to read one page."

I was trying to calm down because the guy was telling the woman, "You see what I'll do to her when I get up to leave." She convinced him to leave it alone.

Around here, the police are quick to label behavior, like grabbing a woman's hand, as a mere "annoyance" unless there's been an injury. It's written into the same penal code that allows the mentally ill to be arrested for minor infractions, creating an intimate familiarity with jails-as-hospitals.

The idea of a "he said/she said" event happening to me, on the grand scale, scares me. Would I be believed? Would my sixteen years in recovery, my hard-won status of being in remission, be cleverly unwound and twisted against me by the attorney? As someone who no longer fits the definition of "disabled" according to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), I'd be held to a different standard.

For the past twelve years I've lived in hiding, preferring to disclose only to a chosen few. In 1992, when I relapsed and was last hospitalized, I returned to work only to find my career was toast. From there on I kept it to myself as I struggled with the internal shame.

All these years, I've adopted a classic look to fit in, to be given credibility. On a casual day, I'll wear boots, a pair of neat, pressed jeans, and a turtleneck under a more formal blazer. I'll wear suits to meetings, and yoga pants only to the gym.

After the incident on the bus, I learned that how I look doesn't matter. That day I was wearing an Ann Klein coat. I thought it would be an effective shield that would spare me the scrutiny of other people. Now I know it doesn't matter whether you're a hotel worker, a reference librarian, or a CEO.

Any sender of a message has no control over how the receiver interprets it. Each person brings to the table his earliest-formed beliefs and experiences. Language is powerful. When the media reinforces a stereotype of women with mental illnesses, how can we know that the average person doesn't believe it, won't be sucked in?

I submit to you my own history: twelve years symptom-free, a high-paying day job in a field requiring a master's degree, a career as a freelance journalist, and the best life I could ever hope for with good friends and family for support and nurturing.

I've been silent for too long. I remember my roots. And I feel for Kobe Bryant's accuser. Will this become the kind of Paula Jones/Bill Clinton court case that has even women wondering about the victim's reputation? We may not know what really occurred. Her truth is hers alone.