Mariah Carey, nicknamed as the Queen of Christmas, revealed how she manages having bipolar disorder.
Opening up about her diagnosis in 2018 during an exclusive chat with PEOPLE magazine, though she had been diagnosed way back in 2001, the singer confessed, “I didn’t want to believe it.”
Mariah then stated how she had started getting treatment which were “the hardest couple of years I’ve been through.”
“Until recently I lived in denial and isolation and in constant fear someone would expose me,” she said, adding, “It was too heavy a burden to carry and I simply couldn’t do that anymore. I sought and received treatment, I put positive people around me and I got back to doing what I love — writing songs and making music.”
The Emotions singer underwent therapy and also takes medications for her bipolar II disorder, which involves episodes of depression as well as hypomania (less severe than the mania associated with bipolar I disorder, but can still cause irritability, sleeplessness and hyperactivity).
“I’m actually taking medication that seems to be pretty good. It’s not making me feel too tired or sluggish or anything like that. Finding the proper balance is what is most important,” Mariah told the outlet.
“For a long time I thought I had a severe sleep disorder,” she further admitted.
The Fantasy crooner continued, “But it wasn’t normal insomnia and I wasn’t lying awake counting sheep. I was working and working and working … I was irritable and in constant fear of letting people down. It turns out that I was experiencing a form of mania. Eventually I would just hit a wall. I guess my depressive episodes were characterized by having very low energy. I would feel so lonely and sad — even guilty that I wasn’t doing what I needed to be doing for my career.”
In the end of the conversation, Mariah Carey revealed that she opened up about her struggle as she is “just in a really good place right now, where I’m comfortable discussing my struggles with bipolar II disorder.”
“I’m hopeful we can get to a place where the stigma is lifted from people going through anything alone. It can be incredibly isolating. It does not have to define you and I refuse to allow it to define me or control me,” the star concluded.