Award-winning rapper, Kanye West has given details on the struggles he had with bipolar disorder.
West who featured on the new season of David Letterman’s Netflix show, “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction.” took the opportunity to campaign against the stigmatization of people with mental health issues.
In a clip of the episode, which is set to drop Friday, Letterman asks West, “What is the mechanism that is malfunctioning or is taking a break in your brain, do you know?”
West replied, “I wouldn’t be able to explain that as much just because, you know, I’m not a doctor.
“I can just tell you what I’m feeling at the time, and I feel a heightened connection with the universe when I’m ramping up. It is a health issue.
“ it’s like a sprained brain, like having a sprained ankle. And if someone has a sprained ankle, you’re not going to push on him more.
“With us, once our brain gets to a point of spraining, people do everything to make it worse.
“You have this moment [where] you feel everyone wants to kill you. You pretty much don’t trust anyone.
“When you’re in this state, you’re hyper-paranoid about everything, everyone. This is my experience, other people have different experiences.
“Everyone now is an actor. Everything’s a conspiracy. You feel the government is putting chips in your head. You feel you’re being recorded. You feel all these things,”West said.
West explained further that about two years ago, he was diagnosed with Bipolar disorder while describing his experience with an involuntary psychiatric hold in 2016.
Further explaining his experience, he said, “They have this moment where they put you, they handcuff you, they drug you, they put you on the bed, and they separate you from everyone you know.
“That’s something that I am so happy that I experienced myself so I can start by changing that moment,” he said.
West first shared his bipolar disorder diagnosis in 2018 on his album, ‘Ye’. He referenced taking medication to treat his condition in his conversation with Letterman.
“If you don’t take medication every day to keep you at a certain state, you have a potential to ramp up and it can take you to a point where you can even end up in the hospital.
“And you start acting erratic, as TMZ would put it,” he said in reference to his impromptu visit to the celebrity gossip website’s headquarters, which sparked headlines.
West said he has chosen to speak up about it because people suffer so much from stigmatization around mental health.
“People are allowed to say anything about it and discriminate in any way,” West said.
He noted that he is currently under doctor’s watch but that he uses alternative treatment techniques, adding that medications may work for others who have bipolar disorder.
For years, fans had suspected his condition, especially after he cancelled his Saint Pablo tour in November 2016, after he was hospitalized.
West seemingly confirmed that he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2018 with the release of ‘Ye’.
In April this year, his wife Kim Kardashian West also spoke about his diagnosis in an interview with Vogue, adding that they had reached a “pretty good place”with his mental health.
“It is an emotional process, for sure,” the 38-year-old reality mogul told Vogue. “Right now everything is really calm.
“But we can definitely feel episodes coming, and we know how to handle them.”
