Coming out about my bipolar disorder has led to a new deep sense of community

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/10/15/ [login to see] /bipolar-disorder-mental-health
A few brave professionals have publicly shared their journeys with bipolar disorder — including psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison, physician Justin Bullock and entrepreneur Andy Dunn. Recently, while serving as California's Acting Surgeon General, I chose to join their ranks.

To help dispel stigma and to spread hope, I shared my own long path to diagnosis and recovery in a National Alliance on Mental Illness conference keynote speech, social media messages and a personal essay in the LA Times.

Despite my early fears that having bipolar disorder would forever derail my path, I shared that I now attribute much of my professional and personal success to the lessons I took from my mental health journey.

This disclosure reached millions, and has brought me the gift of dialogue and deep kinship with hundreds of people touched by mental illness who've reached out to me — many of whose voices sound like mine from years past.

Many wrote that they have never seen someone in a high-profile public role with a serious mental illness speak out. Some, in the midst of the hardest parts of their own journeys, wrote that my words were "live-saving" and had helped them feel less alone, ashamed and hopeless.