Mariah Carey, nicknamed the Queen of Christmas, revealed how she deals with bipolar disorder.
Talk about her diagnosis in 2018 during an exclusive conversation with PEOPLE magazine, although she had already been diagnosed in 2001, the singer confessed: “I didn’t want to believe it.”
Mariah then talked about how she went through treatment that was “the hardest years I have experienced.”
“Until recently, I lived in denial and isolation and in constant fear that someone would expose me,” she said, adding, “It was too much of a burden to bear and I just couldn’t do that anymore. I sought and got treatment, I was surrounded by positive people and I was able to get back to doing what I love: writing songs and making music.”
The Emotions singer was undergoing therapy and also taking medication for her bipolar II disorder, which is accompanied by episodes of depression and hypomania (less severe than the mania associated with bipolar I disorder, but can still cause irritability, insomnia and hyperactivity).
“I’m actually on medication that seems to be pretty good. It doesn’t make me feel too tired or sluggish or anything like that. Finding the right balance is the most important thing,” Mariah told the outlet.
“For a long time I thought I had a serious 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 constantly afraid of letting people down. It turns out I was experiencing a form of mania. Eventually I just hit a wall. I think my depressive episodes were characterized by very low energy levels. I would feel so lonely and sad – even guilty that I wasn’t doing what I needed to do for my career.”
At the end of the conversation, Mariah Carey revealed that she was speaking out about her struggle because she’s “just in a really good place right now where I feel comfortable discussing my struggles with bipolar II disorder.”
“I’m hopeful that we can get to a place where the stigma of people experiencing everything alone is lifted. It can be incredibly isolating. It doesn’t have to define you and I refuse to allow it to define or control me,” the star concluded.
