by Rebecca Palpant for The Huffington Post © 2011
With coffee in hand one morning in January, I opened an email and what tumbled out was a provocative and powerful piece that has stayed with me ever since. In the dark and uncertain days after the Tucson, Arizona, shootings, seasoned journalist Andrea Ball of the Austin-American Statesman gathered the courage to confront the inaccurate and sometimes sensationalized coverage of the tragic shootings. Demonstrating a great confidence in her readers she wrote, "Well, I have bipolar disorder, and I'm not coming to kill you. I promise."
These words, hanging unspoken for so long, were out on the page for the first time to her readers and colleagues. Andrea chose to push through any fear or questions that she may have had to share her private struggle with mental illness with her readers like me.
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