Although the stigma attached to mental illness still lurks, 37-year-old Shirley Ann Muscat's frank testimony on her disorder is another chip off that mould as she admits point-blank that she was afraid she was a murderer.
On World Mental Health Day today, which is focusing on breaking that mould, Mrs Muscat has the courage to admit that she could get up to wash her hands before eating as many as four times - to the point of bleeding - just because she'd brush them against the table.
But that is probably the least of the problems her condition has caused throughout her life. She suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder and that means her existence has been riddled with obsessions that have created their own share of problems, including issues with food, as well as inappropriate obsessions about men, mood swings, excessive, scary and deep philosophising on death, her fear of being a murderer and hospitalisation.
"I would go on and on about the difference between myself and a stone... I used to hide away the knives, afraid that I could use them to hurt someone. I felt I couldn't trust myself," she admits.
It was only much later that she learnt from a psychiatrist that what she was feeling was normal for persons suffering from OCD - and it was a relief, despite the fact that she could have been diagnosed earlier.
Married with two children, Mrs Muscat admits that she used to be a burden on her family. She knows her son never really felt secure alone around her, even though he was still a baby. She'd rush her daughter for head X-rays even if she had only grazed her leg and would have them done again if she moved slightly.
And her husband did not get off lightly either. He has had to patiently give in to her demands, including trying to coax her out of a bathroom when, in a manic stage, she decided she did not want to talk to anyone.
That was probably a turning point in Mrs Muscat's illness, seeing her end up in Mount Carmel Hospital in a bare, single room, with a mattress on the floor and one poky window.
She explains how she had read about a spiritual healer, started attending his sessions and ended up totally obsessed with her supposed problem solver.
"He was almost my God," she admits, with a sense of calm, but also incredulity at the fact that she had felt that way. "In hindsight, he could have been a Satanist for all I knew..."
At that time, Mrs Muscat felt so good that she stopped her pills suddenly... only to wind up in a psychotic state that lured her into leaving the house, running around Malta and heading for the airport. Had it not been for the fact that, as a result of her symptoms, she heard the plants in its flower shop talking to her, she would have probably caught a plane because the sky was the limit at that point.
Mrs Muscat recalls that day's events in immense detail - although she admits to forgetting many day-to-day chores due to the shock waves she eventually underwent, presumably to "forget my sadness".
The day in question was marked by leaving €20 tips in a bar, feeling she had supernatural powers, being insatiably hungry for information and staying up throughout the night to feed her mind and not bothering to wake up the children for school the next day. But the comedown after Mount Carmel Hospital, where she was eventually taken by the police and her family after her out-of-control experience, was a fall from skyscraper heights.
"When they opened the door for me to leave, I couldn't because I was so embarrassed about my behaviour. I had felt so safe there," she relates matter-of-factly, as though the entire episode were the most run-of-the-mill sequence of events.
But Mrs Muscat never wants to go down that road again. She has never felt so content in life as she does now and has no intentions of ever binning her medication no matter how good she feels. It took a while to find the right balance of pills and therapy, she says in her soft-spoken voice.
The support of her family - today she has built a special bond with her son - of the Richmond Foundation and its self-help groups, and of pills and cognitive behaviour therapy, which have helped her manage her illness and her life, have allowed her to reach a point where she now helps others in her same predicament.
"They are often ashamed of how they feel, so I tell them my story to help them realise they are not alone and that if I have managed to sort myself out and have a fulfilling life, so can they.
"I still have obsessions, but I have learnt to live with them, like diabetics live with their condition. Before, I would have blown things out of proportion and anxiety would have ensued, leading to other obsessions and an eventual collapse...
"It's not always going to be easy, but I'm confident and would like to continue learning about my condition and maybe even get trained professionally to be able to help others," she says as a ray of insecurity emerges from a crack in her courage and she asks, doubtfully, whether she did a good enough job in telling her story and whether she has explained herself well...