BIPOLAR. Shut the fuck up! I’m speaking.

First of all: Ye, formerly Kanye West, is not the poster child for bipolar and creatives with mental illnesses. Leave that man alone, and stop letting your disdain for him as a person support your invalidation of his mental illness and mental illnesses overall.

I know it’s unusual to see people living their truth– living outside of YOUR standards that you set for them– and being “the maximum version of themselves,” as Ye would put it. But. Let. That. Man. Be. [End rant]. 

Now, if you managed to get pass my initial opinion of Ye and your opinion of his mental health, and you ain’t mad tight right now and wanna force feed me your opinions, then I suppose we can have a lucid, empathetic, rational, honest and intellectual discourse about the big elephant in society: Mental illness. 

That said, let’s talk about bipolar. 

I heard that I was suffering from depression for the first time in my life from my doctor, Dr Ricketts. Prior to that, a specialist had cautioned my mom on one of my many visits to the doctor as a child that she should be careful with me– as her child is “gifted” and people who are child prodigies, geniuses and masters of the arts often end up with mental health problems. 

Ever since I was a child, I always knew I saw the world in a unique way that often carried a weight that was at times too heavy for my tiny shoulders. But I attributed it to being a creative, and being a little too intellectually advanced for my age because I had access to a lot of information. That might sound good, but not when you’re a child and would rather just bask in blissful ignorance, play with dolls or  sing nursery rhymes. 

My mom was an educator so our house looked like a library. I spent a lot of time reading. And that’s how I knew a lot of things. The access to knowledge that I had was not the typical Hansel and Gretel fairy tale BS, but spanned from the likes of “The Author Biography of Malcom X,” the Bible and “Sigmund Freud: A general Introduction to Psychoanalysis.” 

Oh, did I mention that my mom is also a preacher? A first elder at the time in a Seventh Day Adventist Church, and was also studying to get her Bachelors in Psychology to become a guidance counselor at the high school she was teaching math at? 

So, I was a very well read creative child with an over analytic brain, who was also a recluse who was very sad because I wasn’t afforded the luxury of having the bliss of ignorance and the youthful exuberance of childlike naivety, given the odd brain I had and knowledge I was exposed to. (Long ass fucking sentence. Why do I write like this? Sigh).

I was mostly sad, with no one to share this with, because my parents didn’t deserve the burden of dealing with my petty emotions when they had a family to provide for with limited economic resources in a third world country. They were doing the best they could raising me and my three brothers, and a matter of fact, doing better than anyone I knew since we never had to go without anything and lived way above our social and economical class.

Why burden them with my “sadness?” I learned early to mask my emotions to protect my loved ones. Jamaica, if you didn't know, is  not exactly a society for the emotionally faint of heart. It's a society built on the foundation of being “tough” - a crucial skill for surviving. That said, complaining about feelings that didn’t relate to your basic needs wasn’t exactly met with a welcoming invitation for conversation, and was definitely not at the top of the list of concerns children should have who were privileged enough to have a full stomach at all times, a comfortable place to sleep, roof over their heads and loving hard working parents. 

Fast forward. 

Years later, an expansive catalog of traumas, PTSD and my innate uniquely functioning brain, I was hearing that I’m “depressed” and have “a sleep disorder.” Then, during my brief stay in the mental hospital… bipolar. I laughed hard at that one, since I’ve read all my mom’s psychology books, and studied psychology a bit during college. These shitty doctors asking me text book cliché questions was a joke to me. Sitting in the chair with my ego and cynicism on full blast playing the devil’s advocate after swallowing a buffet of 40 Valiums unintentionally days prior. 

I said, “Please indulge me Doctor, what kind of Bipolar is this that you suspect I might have?” 

He responded with, “I’m not sure. We have to keep you for observation. But we know you’re clinically depressed. But we also suspect it could be Bipolar, Borderline Personality Disorder, or Bipolar 2.” 

Ha! Sure. 

He proceeded to give me information on the symptoms from his pompous high chair of condescension as if he was putting me on to some kind of knowledge that he alone was privy to. 

I rolled my eyes, happily interjected and finished what he was about to tell me, to let him know that ain’t no flex sir, I know what all that shit means and I ain’t have it.  I walked out. 

Fast forward some more.

A few years later, extensive personal research, several failed attempts at therapy, a few failed suicide attempts, sleepless creative binges high off hypomania… I have that shit.

It was time to stop being delusional. 

Time to stop hiding my humiliation of the stigma attached to it by pretending I’m above it and I’m too dope to have it. 

I have that shit. 

Acceptance was relieving. 

Now what do I do? 

I started seeking help, like real help. 

Help where I wouldn’t be judged, where I wouldn’t be a test dummy for antipsychotics, help that was tailored for creatives that suffered from mental health issues, and finding people in my circle I could trust with this information in times when I needed help.

This journey was not easy, and I will eventually talk about that part. But let me tell you what this feels like and how your misconceptions are so off…

First off, Bipolar Disorder and Split Personality Disorder are two completely different things, and it would be nice if you could educate yourself on the differences.

Secondly, stop saying you’re “bipolar” when you have mood swings. It adds to the desensitization and invalidation of real Bipolar Disorder and mental illnesses for that matter. 

There are different kinds of Bipolar Disorders. Stop treating us like we are Ted Bundy’s, serial killers and impulsive savage monsters without a soul or the rationale to know right from wrong. I will do my best to explain what it is like in simple terms without the unnecessary psychobabble that feels like a record label contract that’s intended on you not understanding one fuck that’s tailored against your best interest [shade]. 

Bipolar 2, that I’m diagnosed with, is like an extremely severe form of depression. 

It’s very scary because I could be going through an episode and no one knows. At the lowest point of my episodes, I sink into a deep dark hole. I’m isolated, scared, and in so much pain that the only thing that I think could stop it is death. 

The reason why it is scary, is because most times when this is happening I am by myself, as days leading up to that I start creating some distance between myself and others, until I’m isolated completely. If you don’t know what’s wrong, one could easily think that I’m resting, or I need time to myself, or I’m being creative or I’m just being “Weirdo Racquel” who gets anxious and overwhelmed when people crowd my space. 

That’s called the depressive state. It’s the scariest darkest place to be that I fear more than death itself. 

There’s another spectrum to this that is called hypomania. And because it’s bi-polar, which means two. There are two main phases that are polar opposites. The part where people get confused is that they think bipolar means going from happy to sad, crying to laughter in quick succession. No. 

Between going from the depressive state to hypomania (or mania in the case of people with Bipolar 1,) there’s a lot that takes place over a period of days. So, leading up to episodes, if you know what to look for, there are several signs. 

Now back to hypomania. 

Hypomania, which is a less severe version of mania, is easier to identify than the depressive state, as the signs are more noticeable. They are opposite symptoms of the depressive state, and heightened frantic unusual upbeat behavior. In my case, probably not so noticeable either, much like my depressive state.

These are the times my creative genius takes over and I get a lot of work done and some of the most brilliant ideas are concocted. Anyone who knows me knows of my unbridled uncontainable passion, so if they see me being intensely passionate, being creative, laughing with everything in me, being a little bit more social than usual or chugging a bottle of mezcal, that is not unusual either. 

The parts that they’d have to pay keen attention to are… 

When was the last time I slept or ate? 

Am I able to focus or do I keep jumping from one task or topic to the other? 

Look at my eyes, are they able to focus? Pupils dilated? Am I a little more irritable or sensitive than usual?  

Am I unusually happy? 

Though I don’t have many, have I strayed away from my daily routines? 

And though I’m always an articulate enthusiastic conversationalist when I do speak, is my speech coherent and do I struggle to catch my breath between sentences?

If you don’t know me you wouldn’t know. 

I could very well be dying right in front of an audience of thousands of people or before my friends and family and no one would know until I’m at the last stage of either the hypomanic state or the depressive state. 

The last stage of those two things could go like this: I end up in the hospital from overdosing on sleeping pills trying to force myself to sleep in a hypomanic state, or I attempt suicide or die by suicide in the depressive state. 

The turmoil that exists between having episodes, I am still not able to find the words for. 

The excruciating pain that is felt during these episodes and leading up to them, I’m still not able to find the words for.

The reality that exists for me knowing I’m always one trigger away from jump starting an episode, is the kind of anxiety the vocabulary has not yet been invented to adequately aid in my description of. I am very sure I will never be able to put into words what it feels like dealing with death is a constant part of my waking existence… feeling like I’m dying everyday, and waking up to fight death every single day of my life, some days more so than others.

Bipolar is an illness as severe as any other. Mental illnesses are not just “moods,” and “just having a bad day.” 

People are suffering and dying daily from this. It is both medical and psychological combined. 

We could save more lives if we break the stigma and start taking mental health a lot more seriously. Let’s start saving lives. Save the lives of your loved ones, save each other’s lives, and help me save mine.