Later that summer, after I became well enough to be discharged once again, we decided to move to the Chicago area so that I could continue working with my father’s doctor, whom I trusted, and be near our families. But seven months after moving into our new house, I was back in the hospital. I would be readmitted and discharged two more times over the next half-year. When I left the hospital for the last time in August 1991, I was 38, and while no longer intent on self-destruction, I was more accurately rescued, not restored.

Taking care of children and running a household seemed like a herculean task. My husband and I realized we needed a full-time housekeeper. We found a wonderful woman who knew just what needed to be done: cook, clean and be a surrogate mother. While appreciative of her help, I felt as if my role had been usurped.

I continued to see my doctor every week as an outpatient. But I was demoralized and failed to see much of a change. I asked him how he healed my father, maintaining him on only three lithium tablets a day, whereas I had experimented with about 100 different combinations and dosages of medications (including antidepressants like monoamine oxidase inhibitors, tricyclics and, later, S.S.R.I.’s). “Because,” he said, “your dad was a Ford. You are a Ferrari.” I didn’t know if this was a compliment or an insult.

The first few years after my last hospitalization, I spent a lot of time on the shore of Lake Michigan, near my home. I collected hundreds of beach stones and organized them by size, color, shape and heft. Soon I had dozens of shoe boxes full of them. Sometimes I talked to the Russian fishermen looking for smelt on the pier; other times I walked alongside older women and helped them look for sea glass. I took three-hour naps every afternoon, trying to remember to set the alarm clock, so I would be awake when the kids came home from school. Many times they met a closed bedroom door.

By 1995, I started to feel small changes. The medications were the same. I was still seeing my father’s doctor. I had the same support from my family and from my husband, who once, when I came home on a day pass, had pansies — my favorite flowers — planted along the path from the driveway to the house. The protective cocoon he made for me, along with time, allowed my self to regrow. I could feel my self filling in.

Gradually, I was able to fulfill more of my maternal role: helping with homework, driving to piano lessons, making the worst Rice Krispies Treats in the school. Our housekeeper, while still a tremendous support, was becoming more of a safety net than a primary caregiver. One of my favorite things was driving in the car with the kids, singing along to oldies, trying to answer their questions: “Is the sun going to fall on the earth?” “Where is the first car?” “Why are some books called a ‘turn-pager’?” I had lunch with family members and the occasional friend. With confidence easing its way back to my self, I volunteered at an anorexia foundation near my house. I lined the edges of my desk with stones. Writing was getting easier, words were unlocking. One day I was on the porch with the two younger kids, who were doodling with crayons, when I wrote down the word “pain.” Without thinking, I picked up a crayon and added the letter T to the end of the word. A half-hour later, we were at an art-supply store, buying brushes, tubes of paint and a canvas. We converted the unused third floor of our house into a cavernous studio. Passion had returned and, along with it, creativity.

One day, about eight years ago, it struck me that bipolar disorder was the hand I was dealt. I remembered what my father said to me when I moved from Boston: “Don’t look at what your disorder has taken away from you, try to find what it has given you.” I began speaking to family-education classes of the local chapter of a mental-health organization. I presented a paper at a conference. The more often I spoke, the less traumatic my experience seemed, the less sad, the less painful and, somehow, the less personal.