Mariah Carey Reveals She Was Diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder in 2001
We think we know our stars. We grow up with them, and we listen to them—really listen to them, over and over again, on repeat, and loudly. We grab at more details—anything that will open them up further. A belief that one can really know a person that one has never talked to may be its own small insanity, but still, it’s often a little rattling when a star comes right out and says something to the effect of: “You have absolutely no idea, my guy.” Mariah Carey did just that on Wednesday, when People published, “Mariah Carey: My Battle with Bipolar Disorder.”
Carey was diagnosed with bipolar II disorder in 2001, a disease that punctuates bouts depression with periods of mania. A mental and physical breakdown put her in the hospital that year, precipitated by her divorced from her first husband, Sony Music chairman Tommy Mottola, and break with his label. (It also coincided with the release of her star vehicle Glitter, a notorious bomb.) She didn’t feel comfortable dealing with it at the time. “I didn’t want to carry around the stigma of a lifelong disease that would define me and potentially end my career,” she told the magazine. “People who escape the life I grew up with don’t want to go backwards. I was so terrified of losing everything that I convinced the only way to deal with this was to not deal with it.”
After many years of “denial and isolation,” and especially after her extremely public split from Australian billionaire James Packer , Carey sought treatment. She thought she had regular insomnia—the fun one where you’re just awake for no reason—but realized she was wrong when she filled all those sleepless hours with a lot of work. Carey is now in therapy and on medication, and in “a good place,” which is why she’s here now talking about it with Jess Cagle.
“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 said.
