Rapper Reveals Spreads Awareness Of Mental Health

Kanye West is known for his brilliance as well as his quirks. But the rapper says it’s all part of living with bipolar disorder, a mental health condition that can create extreme highs and lows when it comes to mood. West is working to fight ignorance surrounding the condition by talking about his diagnosis, explaining that bipolar disorder can cause paranoia and bizarre behavior. He explained some of his symptoms on “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman.”

“When you’re in this state, you’re hyper-paranoid about everything,” West said. “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. You have this moment [where] you feel everyone wants to kill you. You pretty much don’t trust anyone.”

West admitted he has even been handcuffed and hospitalized when suffering a manic episode, creating a scary situation for his wife, Kim Kardashian West, and their three children.

(Photo Credit: PATRICK DEMARCHELIER)

“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,” West says. “When you ramp up, it expresses your personality more. You can become almost more adolescent in your expression. This is the specific experience that I’ve had over the past two years because I’ve only been diagnosed for two years now.”

Kudos to Kanye for shedding some light on a poorly-understood condition as he continues to improve and spread awareness about bipolar disorder.