“Oh fuck, people are gonna think I’m crazy.”, was the first thought that came into my mind when the doctor gave me my diagnosis.
I think people already do though, given how crazy intense I am with working and all the things that I do and seriously having more energetic bandwidth than most people.
2022 was a rough year for me, I got extremely depressed that extraverted me didn’t even want to get out of the house because the air felt like pins and needles on my skin. I ignored everyone for weeks, mostly because phone calls and texts gave me severe anxiety, which was weird for me because I’ve been on TV, TWICE!, been on the radio, was on the debate team and have basically done public speaking for most of my life.
I was a shell of myself, just hallow and empty and that emptiness was deep. I didn’t want to live anymore. Me? Ambitious me? who wants everything in life. It even got to a point where I told myself, “If everything burned to the ground right now, I honestly don’t give a fuck.” I laid in bed for weeks, my apartment was full of takeout trash, even going to the bathroom to relieve myself felt like a struggle. All I forced myself to do was work but even that was mediocre. I wasn’t my best self behind my laptop but what got me through work was doing what I do by heart.
I was becoming forgetful. I would space out mid-conversation and could barely compose a thought, let alone a sentence. Everyday was a battle with my mind.
It was such a hard decision for me to even seek therapy because I used to hate talking about feelings. I was a very unemotional person that I never know what to do when someone cries in front of me. I once got mad at one of my friends for breaking down in front of me because I thought it was pathetic. I hated talking about my feelings because I used to think vulnerability was a weakness and people can use it against you to betray you. Feelings? Yuck.
I later on realized that from childhood to recent years of my life, I’ve faced betrayals more than an average person should. In the words of my therapist, “I honestly don’t know how you’ve survived and built something despite all that you’ve gone through.”
In truth, my demons kept me alive but with demons comes anger and self-destruction, to which later on I realized, it was the reason why I drank so much, why I wanted to be around everyone so much even the most toxic people, why I partied, why I buried myself in work/school/gym after. Never having a moment to just be, never having a moment to just exist.
It was all to escape the realities of my life, bottled up in years of being hurt and betrayed countless of times. Always shoving everything down, without the tools to process because I grew up watching my parents get into fights, where silence was closure and we move on like nothing happened. Never leaving room for growth, for change or for accountability to be better.
So there I was, bawling my eyes out to a my therapist, whom I just met, because everyone I talked to would always say “It’s okay, we’ve all been there.” Turns out, I’ve been depressed for awhile now, I just never really acknowledged it. I never really allowed myself to feel because I thought it was a waste of time.
The difference between sharing your innermost thoughts with a therapist is that there are no repercussions or judgement because they have no relation to you. There are no consequences because you are literally paying them to become your safe space. Kind of like an objective friend who uses psychology and behavioral science to give you advice but not necessarily telling you what to do, never really giving an opinion of how they feel about it. Your therapist is neutral, your therapist is objective, your therapist is there to help make you better and manage your condition.
I really thought it was just a passing depression where I’d be on medication for a little bit and get back up but NO.
“I think you already know what’s wrong”, my therapist said. To which I thought, whoa, I may seem smart but I’m also dumb as fuck sometimes.
“I really don’t but one thing I know is I just want to feel again. I will do everything I can to stop this emptiness.”, I replied.
“You have Bipolar Disorder.”
“What? Am I crazy?”, I answered ignorantly.
On top of all that, I was also extremely burned out. Turns out, if you’re burned out and you keep hammering, your body is no longer able to produce happy hormones, which is why I felt so empty. So working at that state was actually a really bad idea.
After prescribing me several medications, I scoured through the internet to learn more about Bipolar Disorder. I downloaded, several books and read the entire day and am continously trying to learn how to manage it. Knowledge is power.
Turns out, I’m not crazy. My brain is just wired differently from everyone else. I have a mood disorder which means, my brain sometimes decides it just can’t today, which can go on for days or weeks and unlike your usual seasonal depression, you can’t reason with it to just stop. Sometimes, I would have days where I have so much energy. If you’ve followed me for a while now, I often get “I don’t know where your hustle comes from, I would not survive it.”
Well, here it is bitches, I have a superpower that also comes with its own kryptonite.
What is Bipolar Disorder? Let me explain so we can all stop calling 2.5% of the population that has Bipolar Disorder crazy.
According to the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) Bipolar disorders are described by the as a group of brain disorders that cause extreme fluctuation in a person’s mood, energy, and ability to function.
This is usually diagnosed during late adolescence or early adulthood, usually in your mid-20s. I was 25 when I was diagnosed.
There are 2 major types of Bipolar Disorder: Bipolar I and Bipolar II.
Bipolar I disorder manic episodes that last for at least 7 days (nearly every day for most of the day) or by manic symptoms that are so severe that the person needs immediate medical care. Which means, you get extreme highs of mania.
Bipolar II disorder is when a person experiences a pattern of depressive episodes and hypomanic episodes, but not the full-blown manic episodes found in bipolar I disorder. Which means, the person does not go through mania but a lesser version called “hypomania” and depression can last longer.
My therapist gave me three options and I think it is important to stress that, when you have a condition, it should be entirely up to you and not anyone else to decide how you want to address it. My options were:
- Just Therapy
- Just Medication
- Both Medication and Therapy
And because I just wanted to get out of it I chose both and boy, the next coming months were rough. I cried for most of it and I rarely cry but this taught me that crying was okay and yes, I cried so much throughout the process that I think you could fill a bucket with it. I was processing years of feelings in a span of months.
What was medication like?
My therapist told me medication was a trial and error thing and we would have to see what worked for me. There was no cookie cutter for it, you just dive right in and see what works. I was probably on 4-5 medications in a span of 8 months to see what worked for me.
This was probably the hardest part about it. There were some that made me sleep all day that I sometimes skipped days and didn’t exist, some that after I wake up, I would need a solid hour to gather my brain and thoughts again, it was like being there and not there at the same time, some medications that felt like a hangover, some that made me sick and some that were just made me feel like a zombie the entire day. Mind you, it was hard because I couldn’t leave my struggling company at that time, I had to push hard to make things work.
After 8 months, I finally found the one and man, was I happy because I really told my doctor how much I like the occasional alcohol, with most medications, you are not to drink at all. This medication allows me to drink, as long as I space it 4 hours before or after 🙂 This may not be the same for everyone but this was like winning the lottery, which the odds are like 1 in 300 million.
There is also no cookie cutter for how you experience Bipolar Disorder, everyone experiences it differently.
What was therapy like?
I was still in my “fuck feelings” mode but I really had such a breakthrough with therapy that it now helps me understand people too. Vulnerability is so powerful that when I started to let go and stopped trying to control everything beyond my control that things just started to happen for me.
It helped me communicate and understand my feelings, which helped made my relationship with my friends and family better because a lot of them really thought they had lost me.
I love therapy. It gave me the tools to manage my mood swings, so much so that after a year of dealing with this, I now have so much understanding of my boundaries to avoid fueling my dips (depressive episodes) and mitigating my hypomania (highs). I have learned to just ride it, kind of like surfing, you patiently wait while it’s low and you give it your all when it’s high.
Mentally ill or not, I absolutely believe in therapy, so I encourage everyone to find no shame in seeking for help because you get a deep level of understanding yourself that it’s really a win-win. I honestly am so much better because of it.
So, am I crazy?
I have to admit, there was a lot of shame. At first everyone I shared this with had to be told to keep it on the down low because I feared that this would affect my company’s reputation, that so much of the stigma around it will make people not want to work with us – having a CEO that was mentally ill and all.
But honestly, for those who would think that, all I can say is respectfully “Fuck You”. This is a fact of myself that I did not choose, nor could I change. This is a fact of myself that I would either be victimized by and use as an excuse or I fight it and give myself all the grace to play the motherfucken best at the cards I was dealt with. This whole experience really made me see how strong I am.
This was harder than being a victim of bullying, harassment and abuse and as I continue to ride the waves of depression, hypomania and so much normalcy than the first few months… I am here and I’m still standing and will continue to stand no matter how hard it gets.
This is getting too long now but lastly, I want to thank the following people who have supported me throughout this process. Your support system plays the biggest role in dealing with any sort of illness.
My therapist, who is a rockstar.
Angela, for learning so much about my condition on day one, that she created a bad bitch list of things for us to do to manage my condition
Keeu, for taking time off his busy schedule to get me my out of my condo, when it was the worst of it and continues to be there for me on my (sometimes) sporadic phone calls and texts whenever I get triggered.
My friends (old and new) and family, who may or may not understand it but have respected my boundaries, that whenever I tell them how I’m feeling, I never feel like I have to force myself to do anything and they love me regardless.
And lastly, my business partner and best friend, Marcel, who has held my hand since Day 1 of my diagnosis, with our daily check-ins for a year now, so that I stood steady with my goals and our shared goals.
There is no shame in having a mental illness but you either fight it or be victimized by it and I urge you to choose the latter.