Mariah Carey is now the most high-profile person living with bipolar disorder. She’s a superstar with pipes of gold and a voice that could outshine an opera singer. And now, the 48-year-old joins the ranks of fellow pop-culture icons like Carrie Fisher, Marilyn Monroe, and Amy Winehouse in what I’ll call the bipolar diva club.
The five-time Grammy Award-winner spoke candidly to People magazine in their April 23 issue, which uncovers her bipolar II status and highlights the singer’s ups and downs in showbiz. She was reportedly diagnosed in 2001.
“Until recently I lived in denial and isolation and in constant fear someone would expose me,” she tells People. “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.”
Like many artists, it is her bipolar mind that may fuel her creativity. Bipolar creatives abound throughout history and include contemporary figures like Robin Williams and Kurt Cobain, as well as historical greats such as Edgar Allen Poe and Vincent van Gogh.
“For a long time I thought I had a severe sleep disorder,” Carey tells People. “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.”
Mariah is one of few performers who we know on a first-name basis, like Madonna, Cher, Aretha, and Janet.
The star tells People that she is feeling well.
“I’m actually taking medication that seems to be pretty good,” she tells the magazine. “It’s not making me feel too tired or sluggish or anything like that. Finding the proper balance is what is most important.”
The singer burst onto the scene in 1990 with her self-titled debut, which spawned four number-one hit singles, including “Vision of Love.” Mariah has been pumping out multiplatinum albums since, and has sold a whopping 200 million albums to date.
It is unknown whether mania has played a role in her prolific creative output.
One of few pop stars to remain relevant over the course of several decades, Mariah is also a bona fide movie star with serious roles in the Oscar-winning Precious and The Butler (on which she shared the screen with Oprah) as well as more whimsical fare, like lending her voice to the Lego Batman Movie.
“I’m just in a really good place right now, where I’m comfortable discussing my struggles with bipolar II disorder,” she tells People. “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.”
Carey is in the studio now working on her next album.
There are 5.7 million Americans living with bipolar disorder. As celebrities like Mariah continue to come out as bipolar, the stigma diminishes further and further.
