Next month will make a year since I shared publicly that I had suffered a mental health crisis during COVID. I shared that I had attempted suicide, had been hospitalized in a mental health facility and that I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. There was more to my story that I didn’t feel comfortable sharing at that time.
As a society, we are just getting comfortable talking about mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety, but part of what I experienced was something less spoken about. Before going into a dark depression, I experienced a bipolar manic episode. At that time, I didn’t know to call it that. I just knew that I was thinking thoughts I never thought of before. I was not myself. I was on the verge of losing everything I had worked for in my life. I was a stranger in my own body.
This month, Cosmopolitan magazine published a mental health edition. I was fortunate to be able to share my story, my true and raw story with them. I invite you to read it. This was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done in my life. But, as I say, “I hope by sharing the worst parts of me, I’ll bring out the best parts of you.”
