Two years before my first severe episode, a friend with an apparently terrific life, a regular old Richard Cory, committed suicide.
They were followed by a depressive crash so severe that his friends had to wake him up and get him to and from work.
Mr. Welt also tells of a friend with severe asthma who can hardly walk but manages to deliver food every Thursday to housebound people through Meals on Wheels.
A few years ago, a friend with severe mental health problems, who was obliged to attend one such assessment to determine if she should continue to receive incapacity benefit, found herself undergoing a foot examination.
A few people, already beset by severe anxiety, went to friends' apartments for comfort.
Children suffering from long term illness often struggle with crushing isolation issues, and according to No Isolation's CEO, 80% of children with severe disabilities have no friends at all.
The Sum of Things was published posthumously, for on 4 July 1980 Manning suffered a severe stroke while visiting friends in the Isle of Wight.
Sex addiction is defined as "any sexually related, compulsive behavior which interferes with normal living and causes severe stress on family, friends, loved ones and one's work environment," according to Patrick Carnes, the author of the pioneering 1983 book "Out of the Shadows: Understanding Sexual Addiction" and creator of the websiteSexHelp.
"There's a built-in glass ceiling for people with severe sleep disorders," a psychiatrist friend told me.
His "interpreter" is Howard, an affable long-time friend with a severe speech impediment whom he's known since the early 90s.
In the third grade at a Sacramento, California, private school for learning-disabled children — Prolexic's name derives from Lyon's pride in overcoming severe dyslexia — he and a friend hacked a simple computer game.
