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For five years, I’ve worked as a public service librarian. Co-workers have been none the wiser about my condition until now. In 2004, NAMI-Staten Island honored me as one of three “Volunteers of the Year.” I had to submit to the affiliate’s executive director my bio and a picture.

Little did I know these details would be published in an article in the Staten Island Advance: “Christina Bruni was honored by NAMI for her ‘courageous’ accomplishments and leadership in improving the lives of people living with mental illness...Ms. Bruni is the Living Life columnist for Schizophrenia Digest in which she writes of her own recovery. She has contributed many articles to New York City Voices.”

A co-worker who lives in that borough congratulated me, “I’ve been carrying the article in my pocketbook. I’m going to send it in to the employee newsletter if you don’t.” A week later I dared.

In January, I experienced my fifteen minutes of fame. The article, lifted directly from the newspaper, appeared in the library’s newsletter. Other co-workers congratulated me for my volunteerism. The little tune “in which she writes of her own recovery” didn’t seem to register on full-volume to anyone.

I thought hard before sending in the press clipping. I wanted to do it because my accomplishment merited applause just like any other good news. I also felt I had to risk the response. I had lived in hiding for too long. I have a successful recovery, which is nothing to be ashamed about. I’ve come this far because I no longer deny I have schizophrenia.

I don’t believe in indiscriminate disclosure or revealing your story right when you meet someone. I’d rather let people get to know me as a person first. Chances are that the article was positively received because I had proved myself as a librarian. I’ve been in the trenches with my co-workers and showed that I could handle myself.

Besides, I have always tended to dress well, act appropriate and have a sense of humor. Unfortunately, people are judged by how they look. Knowing this, mental health consumers have to work twice as hard to be taken seriously. I accept this reality. I’m willing to do what it takes to fit in.

Yet I refuse to compromise my ethics. At the insurance firm I worked at in my 20s, people treated me differently when they found out I was hospitalized. What’s different now? I have the kind of job that lets me express my talents and creativity. I work in a collegiate environment, not a restrictive one.

I think the concept of “stereotype threat” can be shifted to apply to mental health consumers. A stereotype threat is “the threat of being viewed through the lens of a negative stereotype or the fear of doing something that would inadvertently confirm that stereotype.”

Left to our own devices, we function and assimilate in the world. Reminded of our difference, as I was when the article was published, I could have conformed to the stereotype by acting paranoid about what people thought of me. For about a week after the article ran in the newsletter, I worried. Was she talking about me before I entered the room? Would he start to look for signals that I acted weird?

However, I wasn’t going to let my newfound spotlight result in a meltdown. I realized the stakes were higher. When I emailed my friend Stella to tell her I felt uneasy about how the truth unfolded, she lobbed back: “Hang in there and stay focused on living and being a part of life. You have been given wonderful gifts. I firmly believe God does not make mistakes.”