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My behavior was extremely erratic—flying from New York to Tokyo to Paris on business three times a month—counterfeiting art and smuggling tens of thousands of dollars back into the United States. At the same time, I was drinking heavily and indulging in drugs, engaging in sex with complete strangers, staying up for days on end and living on the edge. My friends and family and other people around me were convinced I was functioning just fine because I was efficient, productive and successful. I had everybody fooled with my illness, which had not yet been diagnosed as manic depression.

Once I was diagnosed things changed quickly. My family and friends did not come rushing to my side to support me in my battle. All of a sudden I realized the stigma of having a mental illness. The stigma, I realize now, actually started with me. I initiated it. It was my own fault and a result of my own naiveté at age twenty-eight.

When the doctor diagnosed me and used the words "manic depression" and "bipolar," I was under the impression that the illness was degenerative and that I probably wouldn't live to see my next birthday. He tried to calm me down and talk me through the diagnosis, but I was stigmatized by my new label. And then of course, he had to remind me that I was now part of a category of people called "mentally ill." Oh, God. I was a lunatic, freak, psycho, crack-up and mental case.

When I left his office on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and walked home across Central Park that snowy morning, I had images of being forced to have electroshock therapy (ECT) like Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. But that could never happen to me.

Less than three years later I was in an operating room of a psychiatric hospital in Manhattan lying on a gurney with electrodes attached to my head and receiving electroshock treatments—200 volts of electricity to my head.

Before my electroshock experience, but after being diagnosed, I got up the nerve to ask my parents to dinner at one of their favorite restaurants. They seemed suspicious. They automatically assumed I was in some sort of trouble. I assured them that I wasn't.

"Mom, dad, I've been diagnosed as a manic depressive by a psychiatrist," I said. There was a long silence. It's as if I told them that I had two months to live. They had a million questions. Are you sure? Where did it come from? What's going to happen to you? Oh God, their son had a mental illness! Was I going to end up living with them for the rest of their lives? And of course, they wanted to know if what I had was genetic. Telling them it was didn't exactly make for a pleasant conclusion to the dinner. Not only were they now faced with the stigma that their son had a mental illness, but the stigma that mental illness ran in the family.

With friends, it was easier to break the news of my mental illness. They seemed to know more about manic depression and were supportive of my getting well and staying on a medication regimen. But all "hell broke loose" when medication didn't manage my illness and I opted for the last resort—electroshock therapy. Now, my friends had a truly mentally ill friend who had to be hospitalized and "shocked" to maintain an even keel. This was too much for some of my friends to handle and those friends simply disappeared. Nobody seemed to want a friend who was now officially a psychiatric patient and after electroshock a "certifiable zombie."

A lot of people had the attitude that I had the capability to "kick it" and get better instantly. This was the most frustrating attitude for me. My manic-depression was ravaging my life, but because nobody could see it, many people thought it was a figment of my imagination. Soon, I started thinking this too. But when the symptoms were out of control—the racing thoughts, the hallucinations and the sleepless nights—I actually felt better knowing that I was, in fact, really ill.

I soon "dumped" the stigma and focused on recovery. I followed my doctor's orders and tried not to pay attention to the ignorance of others. I fought it alone one day at a time and, eventually, I won the battle.