I'm not sure when I began to truly grasp the fact that my father was struggling with a disabling mental illness. Perhaps, it was around the time when my father had a nervous breakdown. Or when one of my friends in the colony, where I grew up, one day told me that her parents had forbidden her to come into my house because of my father's condition. Or when my eldest sister stood up for my father and told a relative who had raised some objections about my father's behavior, tha