Lydia Parker, foreground, at home with her sister. She got one of the bruises on her face when an uncontrollable tic caused her to hit herself with her cellphone.

Before the media vans took over Main Street, before the environmental testers came to dig at the soil, before the doctor came to take blood, before strangers started knocking on doors and asking question after question, Katie Krautwurst, a high-school cheerleader from Le Roy, N.Y., woke up from a nap. Instantly, she knew something was wrong.

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Nine years ago, after a lifetime of mood swings and temper tantrums, I found myself considering the possibility of steering my wheel hard to the right and hurtling off the Golden Gate Bridge. The thought was something more than idle, less than concrete, and though I managed to make it across safely, I was so shaken by the experience that I called a psychiatrist.

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