My social media timelines regularly feature people talking about mental health issues and the importance of ensuring stigma does not prevent people from seeking treatment. Yet the last few weeks have seen a change in tone around how mental health is being discussed. Specifically bipolar disorder in relation to Kanye West.
I am not a mental health professional, so this is not an article about Kanye West’s diagnosis. I suggest everyone read Kim Kardashian’s statement about caring for a loved one during an active bipolar episode and asking that they be given “the compassion and empathy that is needed to get through this.”
We have been here before. Bipolar disorder makes headlines when celebrities experience episodes of mania or hypomania in public, only to be brushed back under the carpet when the news cycle moves on. How much understanding this type of coverage really gives people is open to interpretation.
Bipolar I disorder consists of episodes of depression and mania. Bipolar II disorder is characterised by episodes of depression and hypomania. There is also cyclothymia, which is described as a mood disorder similar to bipolar disorder where episodes of depression and hypomania or mania are present but the severity or intensity of the symptoms do not fully meet the diagnostic criteria for either bipolar I disorder or bipolar II disorder.
Bipolar disorder affects approximately one in 50 people in Ireland. With an estimated 46 million people being diagnosed globally. There is a significant chance that you know someone living with the mental disorder, but they may not be open about their diagnosis.
I am one of these people. I was diagnosed with bipolar II disorder in 2016. As I wrote at the time, “it was the least unexpected diagnosis I’ve ever received” but that didn’t prevent me from feeling the effects of stigma—both internal and external.
I had seen lots of mental health campaigns say that it was alright to have depression or anxiety. Yet mental disorders beyond these remain in the shadows because they are rarely included in awareness and destigmatising campaigns.
When I wrote about this disparity in the run up to World Mental Health Day last year, I wondered whether we shied away from bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and other psychiatric illnesses because they are harder to package into serious yet upbeat interviews or feature articles. Which is often how stories of depression and anxiety are presented.
We hear people’s stories after the fact and almost always from a place of wellness. Or recovery is used as a synonym for cured, when in the context of mental health they are not the same thing. For many of us recovery means a stable mood, with no active symptoms, but the underlying mental health condition is still there. It can be managed, but it doesn’t disappear. Recovery is an ongoing process that takes work.
This framing allows us to think we have moved on from the damaging views of the past. But have we really? Our responses to people in the public eye who relapse indicate otherwise. We are still quick to see them as having failed. We are still quick to crack “jokes” about their madness. We are still quick to assume that no one we know would ever act that way.
Here’s the thing: having a mental illness is not an excuse for someone’s actions, but it can be an explanation.
Symptoms of hypomania and mania can include risky behaviour such as spending large sums of money or seeking sexual gratification with people that you shouldn’t as a result of hypersexuality. These things happen while the person is actively ill, but when their mood stabilises they must deal with the consequences of their actions. Be that confronting the debt they have incurred or attempting to rebuild relationships that were damaged by their sexual encounters during this time.
The explanation does not negate the consequences. In fact, one of the most important parts of recovery in cases like these is facing up to the things you have said or done during an active bipolar episode. All while remembering that no one in your life owes you acceptance of your apology or forgiveness.
It is possible that the damage done may be too great to overcome. But it needs to be dealt with either way.
Bipolar disorder can be messy. And it can recur. People can do everything right—medication, therapy, practising self-care, getting enough sleep and accessing community care—and be stable for years only to relapse.
Bipolar disorder doesn’t fit neatly into a “I was sick and now I am not” narrative. Which is exactly why we need to talk about it.