On the tribulations of being bipolar
13 January 2026

I was diagnosed bipolar during my first episode that occurred beyond my forties after a prolonged period of stress where I had to juggle many difficulties within a high stress environment. After my initial diagnosis, I was told two things that bore significance for me: 1 – People are usually diagnosed as bipolar during their childhood, adolescence or early adulthood as a bipolar episode would have happened by then and 2 – The condition is called generally bipolar without distinction while technically, some people are not bipolar but rather unipolar when the depression component lacks in their mood. In my case, the diagnosis was bipolar even though no depression cycle was ever observed by others nor experienced by me. Together with the fact that I had suffered no previous episode before, this led me to believe that perhaps I was wrongly diagnosed but a request for a new diagnosis was not carried out. 

Growing up, I had learnt to cover up my autism (a condition that was later identified but initially overlooked) by assimilating external patterns to cover my social inadequacy such as my incapacity to pick up social cues that everyone seemed to be well aware of. At the same time, I had always felt acutely the changes in atmosphere and had a greater ability to sense when people were lying. I had succeeded in fully masking my autism but for some small events where onlookers witnessed OCD-like behaviour together with a heightened desire to have a succession of habits that comforted me and allowed me to function quasi normally within my family or the broader society. With the bipolar element though, it was difficult to just cover up its effects that went beyond mere social inadequacy. I suffered a repeated bipolar episode when I was subjected to another stressful environment and emerging out of it felt like a victory although it felt like I had to reinvent myself all over again under watchful though uncaring eyes.

At my initial bipolar episode, I had little to no support whether socially or professionally and later on, it became obvious that being ill meant you did not survive as nobody around cared so I gritted my teeth and with the help of meditation, relaxation techniques and my energy healing techniques that I had acquired, I carved out a life that would not collapse at the advent of another bipolar episode. I also made sure I continued my medication even when I felt absolutely fine and even through all my sessions of meditation and energy healings. I wanted to ensure I kept the bipolar episodes at bay because, ultimately, if I let go, it would be the end of any normal social or professional life.

After my second bipolar episode - also stress-induced - I realised that not only do most people not care about people with varying mental disabilities, but they also are somehow either afraid of them or consider them to be childlike and thus incapable of restraint. Therefore, their response when meeting someone bipolar, for example, is to either reject them, be wary and refuse to engage with them normally or try to monitor and micro-manage them, whether in a social or professional context. Despite the various sessions organised by institutions to increase awareness about such medical conditions, the tendency to avoid, belittle, smother or exclude continues both in social and professional environments. This makes it harder for people with non-visible disabilities like us bipolars to thrive within these environments as we are already carrying on a battle within ourselves between the need to perform within our social and professional environments and the effects the ostracism of others has upon us. 

Nobody sees or knows of this daily battle because it is cloaked within us as we continue to hide from those who still do not know about our condition, hoping that this would lead to a better social and professional outcome. The most awful thing that can happen for someone like us who has such a condition and does not want others to know for fear of reprisal or ostracism, is when the information is leaked despite our best efforts. This happened to me as my condition was leaked to other colleagues, making my interaction with some of them stilted or just leading to ostracism and/or simple rejection. Some started observing me, trying to pick up on every little oddity that I may express so as to speak about this with others. Partnerships caved in, relationships became tense where they once were normal. Others tried to orient me towards what they thought I should do about my condition and some kept trying to monitor me believing that I should be reduced to the level of a child and could not manage my own condition despite the fact I was working with health professionals on a regular basis and was successfully managing my condition.

I kept this within me for a number of years, still keeping my condition under wraps as much as possible, considering the situation I was in. Lately, however, I decided that I should not need to cover up my condition. The fact that institutions and especially managers within those institutions may not be ready to harbour within them an individual with a condition they do not understand should not stop us from owning what we are. Most of us are resilient and have carved a good life for ourselves despite being bipolar or having another non-visible mental condition. There is also linked to the bipolar condition a great potential for tremendous creativity and productivity, especially for those of us who are unipolar as we don’t sink into depression after the phase where we are experiencing a high. I have also talked to other bipolar individuals and we seem to share one interesting fact which is that during our “high phase”, we have no limitations as everything seems possible so we can solve a lot of problems creatively and while others think out of the box to solve/create/innovate, we just think and see no box thereby applying our mind in infinite ways. This might account for my earlier ability to achieve good grades in school and University without the need for assiduity in my studies and could also account for my good results in chess competitions in the past, before I decided to stop competition in order to concentrate on my family life.

When I look at my own experience and that of others whom I have talked to, I believe society has still got a lot to do to catch up on how individuals with hidden disabilities, more specifically mental conditions, should be treated. This would need the schooling system to generate more awareness and empathy for such conditions and for professional institutions as well as faith based entities to promulgate more favourable conditions for people like us, whether bipolar, autistic, or suffering from another mental condition. Raising awareness is definitely a good step in the right direction but beyond the awareness of the condition, institutions need to be aware, themselves, of the negative biases their employees harbour against people with mental conditions and make sure that there are adequate measures to pick this up and put an end to it. It is not enough to explain how such individuals should be treated, including with fairness and openness/inclusion, there should be a measure of how a particular individual may be subject to unfairness and lack of inclusion. Managers should receive appropriate training if it is found that they have individuals with certain mental conditions within their team.  In a world where people who are bipolar like us struggle to perform, where we feel that it is more a jungle than a safe space to grow in, we need the institutions we work for to recognise our contribution and keep us safe from those who increasingly attempt to cut us off merely because they do not know how to interact with us or are afraid of us. The future can only be inclusive because it is by our diversity that we make the greatest progress, not by our uniformity.

Peter Gabriel - My body is a cage [Thony Hacket Thorn (Konto Video)]