A couple of days ago I got some really bad news. I found out that a friend of mine had committed suicide. I knew that he had been having a bad time but this news really floored me.

Let me explain the background to how I met L and the impact he has had on my live over the past year.

I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder last April in NYC. Very long story, but I came home to Scotland after a couple of weeks in hospital and tried to face up to life after being diagnosed with a mental illness.

Bipolar disorder is basically a chemical imbalance in the brain. No one knows where it comes from, although it appears to be partially genetic, and there is no cure. The symptoms vary from person to person in severity, but there are two basic components: mania, which can be a wonderful high but can hit like a tornado and leads to dangerous loss of judgement and depression, which can leave you literally unable to function in a dark despair.

I attended a couple of support group meetings in Glasgow and began to learn a little about my disease and how to cope with it. By chance I gave L a lift home after a meeting and we talked for a very long time, the first of many such conversations.

L was a long time sufferer of bipolar and also worked in the mental health field. He was an inspirational character with an infectious enthusiasm for life and an incredibly down to earth attitude to his illness. And he taught me a lot about self management: the ability to recognise your own mood changes as they start and to cope with them sensibly and practically.

L seemed to be able to cope with bipolar in a way that I didn't think was possible and he gave me a great deal of hope that I could also live a fairly normal life despite my condition. He seemed to have it all sussed out.

When L got ill he tended to hide himself away, which was totally the opposite of his usual gregarious personality. But he would get through the low times and come back stronger than ever.

I had heard that he was ill and many people noticed that L wasn't around for a couple of months. But when that stretched to almost six month many people began to worry.

And then came the awful news.

It appears that L set his affairs in order and then ended his life. I can respect that decision, although I doubt if anyone who hasn't felt truly suicidal will understand. This was a major low and it appears that L simply decided that it was one too many for him.

But I can't shake the feeling that if L was in the end unable to cope with the disease, what chance do the rest of us have?

Many of us in Scotland have lost a very good friend. And the world has lost one of the genuinely good guys, the type of person who enriches your life simply from having known them.

But with his death a little bit of hope also died within me.