I'm really quite bipolar, and the depressed times, when everything felt like night, sometimes you get to such a low point that you physically beat at it until it bleeds - as you would say - bleeds till sunshine.
Do I perform sometimes in a manic style? Yes. Am I manic all the time? No. Do I get sad? Oh yeah. Does it hit me hard? Oh yeah.
Now, bipolar disorder, it goes on a spectrum. There's very severe conditions of it and there are milder ones. I'm lucky enough that it's reasonably mild in my case.
When I was diagnosed, I believed my illness would be my great, lifelong weakness. Bipolar disorder was to be my impenetrable prison, and I would be locked up with it in a castle Princess Toadstool style. Thinking there was no way out, I let it consume me.
If you're manic-depressive and you're functioning in this world and doing it all well, I think, wow, you should be proud of being able to say, this is what I'm getting through right now.
I'm fine, but I'm bipolar. I'm on seven medications, and I take medication three times a day. This constantly puts me in touch with the illness I have. I'm never quite allowed to be free of that for a day. It's like being a diabetic.
I had been a hurricane all my life. And that was, of course, because I was bipolar and did not know it. And I was - you know, the mania took control. When you're on stage and when you're performing, you're heightened, and it's an extreme.
Depression is 80 per cent of my condition, and 10 per cent is mania, and 10 per cent is what we call normal. I say that must be when I am buying groceries. Or vacuuming.
Every now and then I hear voices in my head, but not very clear. I can't understand what they are saying. It's a mental illness. I have been diagnosed as a manic depressive.
I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder when I was barely out of my teens. Like our olive skin tone and caterpillar eyebrows, I guess it just runs in the family.
I was diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder at 19, which I thought would derail my career. Thankfully, I was able to get help and continue the path, and I think, for me, the buzzword is perseverance.
Alright, so I'm a manic depressive. What do you want from me?
When I harnessed its seemingly uncontrollable might, I realized bipolar disorder's powers could be used for good. My diagnosis didn't have to be an affliction. It could simply be the gift of extraordinary emotions.
I can't be normal. I'm probably bipolar.
Manic depression's touching my soul. I know what I want, but I just don't know how to go about getting it.
I'm really quite bipolar, and the depressed times, when everything felt like night, sometimes you get to such a low point that you physically beat at it until it bleeds - as you would say - bleeds till sunshine. You get to a point where you say, 'I will not take it anymore! I'm gonna do something drastic if I stay this depressed. I've got to break out of there!'
Sometimes labeling is only useful, like with OCD. Once you're labeled you can be treated. On other occasions labeling leads to tyranny, like with childhood bipolar disorder in the U.S.
Being bipolar is a huge exaggeration of your emotions. You can be pretty high and also terribly low, so I've been through it all.
I am bipolar, and I am proud. And that is why I wanted to write a book. To shine a light on mental illness, to be vulnerable about the days I let it take control and paid dearly for it, and to tell anyone fighting a similar battle: You are not alone. You are not broken.
As lives go, I'll take the quietly desperate over the radically bipolar.
Even when I'm in a really great, steady and stable place... I'm clinically bipolar, so that always exists - a darkness always exists.
I lost my father four years ago to what was the culmination of a manic episode that seemingly, to my family, came completely out of the blue after 59 years on this earth with no issues that we knew about, at least - sort of a normal run-of-the-mill guy who did his job and came home and had a family.
I have a great relationship with my parents. I have not been on lithium.
I think my real depressions started when I was about 16 and doing The Patty Duke Show. I would go to bed at about 10 o'clock on a Friday night and not get up again until 6:30 Monday morning.
The smartest thing I did was to stop going online. I'm the sort of person who will just look for the negative - Michael really can't understand it, but that's just the way I am. And with my bipolar thing, that's poison. So I just stopped. Cold turkey. And it's so liberating.
