My goal is to be the Rachael Ray of the recovery movement. Have you ever seen this chatty, gregarious cooking expert and lifestyle show host? One day I watched her on TV while I waited in the doctor’s office. Her infectious good humor cheered me so much that I wanted to tape her shows and replay them at night when I got home from work.

It was then that I decided that I want everyone who meets me—whether in person or on paper—to feel good afterwards. I’m open and honest about what happened to me because I believe that people can recover. “Only silence is shame,” to quote the Italian anarchist, Bartolomeo Vanzetti. And if I kept quiet, what would be the point?

I seek to be a force of good in the world, because the illness destroys, and through my recovery I want to create things of beauty and show people a better way.  Quite simply, I couldn’t bear to see someone go through what I did and feel there is no hope, or worse, not get the treatment that works.  If I remained silent, I’d be complicit in perpetuating the stigma.

In the fall, I joined a memoir-writing workshop. At the fourth session, I presented to the others the first chapter in Left of the Dial, my memoir.  It was the breakdown scene rendered in vivid detail. "You have a winner!" the instructor told me. "You are courageous," the women in the workshop said.

Eloise, one woman in the class, asked if I wanted to grab dinner somewhere afterwards, and I knew she was going to disclose. Sure enough, seated at a table in the Greek Taverna, she said, “I have bouts of depression.” It truly is a small world.

Talking about our lives, I felt comfortable discreetly taking my medication out of my silver pillbox and swallowing it down with a glass of water. After dinner, the waitress came over with a dessert plate of baklava—“courtesy of the chef,” who had pulled up a chair at one of the tables and was talking to an animated gathering of friends.

Now, my goal of being as outgoing as Rachael Ray is only a wishful dream, because there’s only one of her. Just like there’s only one of me and one of you. And when we like and accept who we are, and we’re true to our authentic selves, others will be at ease in our presence.

I’m not saying dare to disclose to everyone you meet. It’s your right to quietly embrace the diagnosis and be on your merry way, or else to robustly advocate for yourself and others. Either way, the point of recovery is to enjoy life.

Years ago I went to the Brooklyn Museum of Art to see Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party exhibit. The artist wanted to give women a place at the table, and had created a multitude of colorful place settings that I walked along viewing.

So, too, my ultimate goal is to see that people living with schizophrenia claim their rightful places at the table. We deserve to be happy, healthy, wise, and wealthy. Though not all of us have financial riches, I’m convinced we have an abundance of the things that truly matter: courage, resilience, and determination. Let’s raise our glasses and toast what God has given us: a life that, no matter how hard, is always worth living.