This column contains descriptions of one person’s experience with depression and other mental health related struggles which some readers may find upsetting. If you or someone you know is in distress,...

Mandato describes the way the disease changed her life, but didn't change her, saying, “What I noticed was that people were really uncomfortable around me because they didn’t necessarily know what to say,” she said. “But I wanted to tell them no one’s changed, like I still like the same jokes, the same things.”