It's 3 p.m. on a Sunday at the coffeehouse. I'm here with friends who've all been down the rocky road I traveled. I'm sunk in the comfort of a marigold chair.

Reed says, "Isn't it nice to know if you look at us, you can't tell we have schizophrenia?"

I'm drinking a caramel latte, and I'm warmed by the comment as much as by the java. He's dressed in black Levis and a tee shirt, sprawled on the sofa that flatters his complexion. In the dim light of the coffeehouse, I feel safe, comfortable, secure.

"Yes." I smile. It cheers me to be with them. "I'm gleeful."

"That's okay. Be gleeful," Stella tells me. She's wearing a dress that looks like a picnic-table cloth.

My hard-won victory is sweet. I remember a time when I was searching for this kind of friendship. In 1987 I had been hospitalized for three weeks. My beloved grandfather was in a coma, hooked up to a respirator in the intensive care unit at Memorial Heights.

That was the breaking point. My thoughts were racing, paranoid-like runaway train cars with no caboose. I ran wild in my feelings, acted bizarre, and talked in run-on sentences. Mom drove me to the emergency room. I was transferred to the psych ward, diagnosed with schizophrenia, and given the medication that saved me.

I had graduated college in June. I was the girl who was supposed to take on the world. My friends moved on-became stockbrokers or accountants-and I was left to pick up the pieces of my shattered life.

I moved into a residence where I met a woman with bipolar disorder who was a couple of years older than me. We shared a love of the rock'n'roll I used to spin as a college disc jockey. Music is a passion second only to writing for me. I took comfort in the scratchy tunes I'd play on my phonograph, and in the words I wrote down in my journal.

At the housing project, I looked around and saw my fate: a life spent collecting a disability check, living off the kindness of the government-the very one I thought had been after me. I decided that the only way out of the system was to find the employment that eluded me after college. Within three years, I had a full-time job and a one-bedroom apartment near the beach.

I told my therapist, "What more could anyone ask for except two friends, pizza, and a really great sound system?" He agreed. The song of my life was hopeful. I went on dates. I went through the motions of what I thought it meant to have arrived. Yet in my heart, I felt disconnected from others. My feelings were rocky but I thought I couldn't have an illness-after all, I could hold down a full-time job.

In 1992, the doctor supervised a drug holiday that had a fateful consequence. I was hospitalized four months later and forced to take the medication I thought I no longer needed. Revolving in and out of corporate jobs, I went back to school for a masters degree in library and information science. I've been in recovery for sixteen years, hospital-free for twelve.

Two years ago, happily rooted in work as a reference librarian, I began to feel discontent. I felt like I'd been in hiding for too long. One morning I woke up in a panic. I felt ashamed and guilty because at 22, I hadn't been able to do what other college graduates could. I wanted support-a room where I could go and talk about my experiences openly. I wanted to be accepted.

Those five weeks I spent in the ward back then changed my life forever. I could no longer deny that I had an illness. I found a support group, and when I walked into my first meeting, I met the people I consider true friends: Stella, a woman who loves books and fashion as much as I do, and Reed, who works as an editor and paints.

At the coffeehouse, we share our everyday experiences, the poetry of our lives, witty repartee, whatever comes to mind. The days are long here and I don't want them to end. Our struggles are kept in check by our good fortune in having found each other. The conversation flows. The music reminds me why it's good to be alive: Cyndi Lauper drifts in with "Time After Time."

I'll picture us here, living and laughing. The memories won't fade. We'll have bared the secrets of our souls. And life will continue.