Mariah Carey
Mariah Carey has revealed that she has been battling bipolar disorder for the past 17 years.
For the longest time, the music icon had believed that what she has been dealing with was merely “a severe sleeping disorder.”
As it turned out, she was already going through a “form of mania” associated with her condition.
“I was working and working and working… I was irritable and in constant fear of letting people down… Eventually, I would just hit a wall,” she said in a recent interview with People magazine.
“I guess my depressive episodes were characterized by having very low energy,” Mariah added. “I would feel so lonely and sad—even guilty that I wasn’t doing what I needed to do for my career.”
She was diagnosed with bipolar II disorder in 2001, after her infamous “emotional and physical breakdown” that landed her then in psychiatric care. She didn’t want to believe it, Mariah said, and has since lived her life in “denial and isolation.”
But she has finally decided to seek help and is now undergoing therapy and medication.
“I’m in a good place right now, where I’m comfortable discussing my struggles,” she said, noting the stigma that comes with having mental health issues.
“It does not have to define you and I refuse to allow it to define me or control me,” she stressed. —ALLAN POLICARPIO