In a recent cover interview with Forbes, Kanye West opened up about living with bipolar disorder, being called “crazy” and the negative stigma associated with the word.
According to the 42-year-old Grammy-Award winning artist, being diagnosed with a mental health disorder doesn’t make you “crazy.” In fact, he wants to do away with the word altogether.
“‘Crazy’ is a word that’s not gonna be used loosely in the future,” West told Forbes. “Understand that this is actually a condition that people can end up in, be born into, driven into, and go in and out.”
As for as his own experience with bipolar disorder, or his “superpower” as he calls it, West is in a completely different space than when he took a much-needed break from his Saint Pablo tour and the entertainment industry in 2016.
Apparently, West has only been diagnosed with bipolar disorder for two years now. He discussed the potential side effects of skipping out on medication with David Letterman on “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” in May.
“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,” he told Letterman. “When you ramp up, it expresses your personality more. You can become almost more adolescent in your expression. This is my specific experience that I’ve had over the past two years because I’ve only been diagnosed for two years now.”
The father of four told Forbes that he credits his relationship with “Christ” for helping him through some of his darkest moments.
As for the so-called “crazy” people, West said that they are some of the most successful people in life.
“And there’s a lot of people that have been called that ‘C’ word that have ended up on this cover,” he told Forbes.
