‘We Need To Stop Judging Kanye’s Bipolar Behaviour’

I am a fan of Kanye West’s music, but I don’t pay much attention to his personal life. I quite literally cannot keep up with the Kardashians – I’m not even sure how many there are. But it has been impossible to avoid the controversy around West’s series of (now deleted) tweets accusing his wife of infidelity; speculating on divorce; and calling his mother-in-law a ‘white supremacist’. He’s also launched an ostensible bid for President at a chaotic event.

West has bipolar disorder, a mood disorder, and has spoken eloquently about it in the past. I, too, have a diagnosis of bipolar disorder (alongside other things, but honestly, we don’t have the time). In my case, I was diagnosed in my late teens and the nature of the illness has changed for me over time. The manias have lessened as I have become older. I have always had significant depressive episodes, but I now have 'mixed' episodes. These tend to encompass the heightened energy and grandiose ideas one would find in a manic episode, but also the melancholy of depression. I become angry and irritated, rather than experiencing the manias in my youth when – I thought, at least – I was having a grand old time.

Two years ago West gave an interview to Jimmy Kimmel in which he said that his form of the illness – there are numerous categories – tends towards mostly manic episodes. These are usually the ones where, though family and friends can see something is amiss, the person themselves will not seek help. ('Non-compliance' in medical jargon.) It's perhaps what Kardashian West referenced in the brilliant statement she put out following Kanye’s tweets; she included the point that the ‘family is powerless unless the member is a minor’.

There are many misconceptions about bipolar disorder, as there are with other severe mental illnesses. Thankfully, the public now has a greater understanding of conditions such as depression and anxiety – also so debilitating – but as West has said it in the past, bipolar is a complex illness and it isn’t easy to understand. He’s written and talked about his experiences with medication, hospitalisation, thought patterns. Indeed writing this now, I am adjusting to an altered dose of medication that was changed a fortnight ago because bipolar is a condition that has to be constantly managed.

It is also important for the wider public in this instance not to speculate. I am being very careful to only reference things West himself has said, or those close to him. The only people who can truly know when West’s behaviour tips into clinically diagnostic behaviour, rather than what we might call West’s general, shall we say, not exactly shy-and-retiring utterances, are those who know him IRL. Kardashian West rightly said that people ‘far removed from this experience can be judgmental’.

Social awareness campaigns and hashtags are all very well – and have indeed helped a lot – but it’s just a fact that certain mental illnesses affect a person’s behaviour. Sometimes that behaviour is unpalatable. As a society, we do not seem to have fully acknowledged this. One can argue that mental illness can’t be seen as an excuse, but quite often it’s an explanation. The scariest thing about episodes of illness for me are the sense that I am losing who I am: my identity. This means my views start to shift in ways I don’t recognise. It also means that when I stabilise, I am often left ashamed or guilt-ridden.

As Kardashian West put it in her statement: ‘We as a society talk about giving grace to the issue of mental health as a whole, however we should also give it to the individuals who are living with it in times when they need it the most.’ Precisely.

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