Going Back Into The Mental Health Closet In China
In my home country, I’m pretty ‘out’ mental health wise. Some people know that I have Bipolar II. I don’t shout it to the world over Facebook, but I don’t hesitate to tell friends, acquaintances in the right circumstances, and a couple of times I’ve even talked about it on a first date.
To me disclosure is both very important, and not a big deal. I think mental health stigmas are a huge problem globally, so I’m fiercely passionate about being open and encouraging others to do this too (when they are ready). I also don’t really care about people knowing, because I am not my bipolar, and my bipolar is not me.
Having said that, bipolar is defintely a part of who I am. It makes me a unique individual with some great quirks, creative tendencies, and incredible empathy. It’s also the reason I have to be very careful about managing my daily life with sleep, stress, medication, meditation, eating, and exercise. Sometimes, much less often now, I go down. Way down.
But this is not an article about depression, it’s about the fact that since moving to China, I’ve had to keep quiet about who I am. I’ve had to go back into the mental health closet. It’s almost ironic, because I’m also queer, and there is no problem with that…
