Never in a million years would I have guessed that my wonderful husband—a pillar in every community we’d ever called home and certainly the rock in our family—would fall prey to bipolar disorder. He was 34 years old and we were living a beautiful life with our four kids on the Big Island of Hawaii. He was a pastor, a musician, an entrepreneur, a surfer, a loving father and one of the most gifted, talented human beings I’ve ever met. He was never depressed, but rather had a constant zest for life and adventure.

In May of 2010, he started acting strangely. He was spacey, restless, emotional, and lost his appetite. He began unloading the dishwasher and putting things in the wrong places, which was very unlike him. I began to suspect he had a brain tumor. A scan showed no abnormalities, but sadly he quickly became extremely psychotic and had to be hospitalized.

The next four years were a nightmare and forced us to leave our home in Hawaii. My husband would go through periods of mania on a monthly basis and often went missing, later turning up in a mental hospital far away. It was during one of these times when he was missing that we lost him. In a state of confusion, he attempted a feat too great for his human abilities and it killed him shortly before his 39th birthday.

Living through this tragedy opened my eyes to the world of mental illness and all who suffer in the shadows. It also gave me a heart of compassion and a desire to help those who are supporting loved ones with mental illness. When one suffers, we all suffer.

We’re all in this together and it’s my desire to smash the stigma associated with mental illnesses of all kinds.

Having achieved two bachelor’s degrees and a master’s degree public health, Katherine thought she “had the world by the tail.” Although she had experienced dark feelings and insecurities before, she never would have believed they would lead to full-blown depression. But by the time Katherine was 28, her depression had impacted her life in a major way. She had been hospitalized numerous times, lost her apartment, job and benefits, ultimately forcing her to file for bankruptcy and move in with her parents.

I truly believed that any hope of having any semblance of a normal adult life was over and I would forever remain an adult-child dreaming of the life that could have been.

But at a hospital dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) day-program Katherine attended, life began to turn around. Through the program’s individual and group therapy (most helpful for people who have difficultly managing their emotions), Katherine learned new skills to manage and cope with her emotions and tolerate emotional distress. Eight years after her life fell apart, Katherine re-entered the job market and her life “took giant leap forward.”

In Katherine’s words, "Recovery is possible for most everyone because it is defined by the person doing it. There is no right or wrong way to recover - rather it is about living a life that has ups and downs, successes and failures, dreams and hopes - one that is fulfilling. It is about building or rebuilding a life in spite of being diagnosed with a mental illness. I never thought that I would be able to take the most disenfranchising event in my life, being diagnosed as seriously mental ill, and turn it into one of the most empowering.

With over 12 million subscribers, Lilly Singh (a.k.a. Superwoman) is one of the most popular YouTubers in Canada. Lilly talked about her battle with severe depression in detail when she created a “Draw My Life” video in 2013. “I eventually learned to talk about my feelings, create healthy relationships and most importantly, to love myself. It became my goal to take all the pains of depression and transform those pains into lessons and tools I could use to better my life,” she said. "Remember, it's OK to feel sad from time to time, but if you're feeling upset all of the time, it's important to get help."