“Catching a darkness” has been one of my favorite bipolar disorder personal websites. I first visited in 1998.

The haunting images captured by the Jessica’s brother is more telling of the suffering endured by patients with bipolar disorder than any amount of scientific papers I can read. Every couple of years, I’d visit the site; I’d be encouraged about updates of Jessica doing well. Then Jessica committed suicide in May of 2003.

We can easily judge a person’s pain and condemn a person for being a coward or taking an easy way out. Judging comes easy when we have not experienced constant and perpetual psychological pain. For some living with a mental illness, Hell sounds like a welcome relief.

Living in the shadow of mental pain is torture. Sometimes we make it through the abyss. Sometimes we break. Even for those of us who have “made it”, we are not guaranteed a relapse free future. For many, living every day is like punching a time card, two or three times a day. You don’t get leniency when you missed a punch or showed up late.

I don’t know what makes one person give up in utter despair while another person hang on.

I am no stranger to this darkness - the “utter” kind of despair - the kind that makes people step away from you ever-so-carefully.

I have learned to appreciate the courage to hang on and live.

Click to visit Boris Dolin’s photo essay and tribute to his sister, Jessica Dolin, in Catching a Darkness.