Four Men. One Bipolar Mind
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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My name is Louise Barnett, and I've been thinking about dying since nineteen ninety-nine. When my mind turned against me for the first time. And over the next fifty years. I self-sabotaged by chasing love, drugs, pain, really anything that might quiet the storm in my mind. And Over those fifteen years I didn't know There was a war, right? I didn't know I was fighting bipolar one disorder. I just spent those 15 years loving through madness at the mercy of undiagnosed bipolar one disorder. And This led to ultimately, you know, we'll fast forward to the present and we'll go backwards again. But ultimately when I decided to write Tainted Love, my memoir, um, it came out of these 15 years of really loving through madness.
So foremen, mannequais, crushing lows, um, think like love, addiction, single motherhood, identity, survival, and through it all, the ups and downs and everything, like in the end, the noise does fade, right? And the mask does lift and we discover untainted love. So That's kind of just a little bit about who I am and And what brings me here? Um I think to understand my story like before diving into, you know, kind of Where I came from, I think it's really important to understand the two key metaphors that drive bipolar disorder. For me.
What does it feel like to live with undiagnosed bipolar disorder?
And so I like to describe it as like imagine a hummingbird. And a hummingbird is like you just smiled, right? Like a hummingbird is like sweet and vibrant and colorful and creative and she's fast, right? And she, you know, chases nectar and she chases nectar and Ultimately, though, she can't sustain it, right? And so she kind of ultimately ends up blindfolding herself and she's like floating around without any direction and she can't sustain it. And so ultimately she crashes into a brick wall and she plummets straight to the ground. And that's when the Raven Who's been circling around this entire time? Swoops in and the raven always carries a dark cloak, and the raven places this cloak over the hummingbird, completely smothering her.
So she can no longer breathe, she can't see, she can't find a way out. Um and This duality was my reality for 15 years. There was no in between. It was a Jekyll and Hyde world and it ultimately brought me to a crossroads, a literal crossroads, where I didn't want to make a choice anymore. That's a little bit about what you can kind of imagine as we're kind of, you know, taking this journey. At what
age would you say that you started feeling that way? Fifteen. Okay. Mm-hmm.
How did growing up in a Mormon household shape Louise’s early life?
Yeah, so I was raised a daughter of immigrant parents. They're from Zimbabwe and they were converts of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. Mormonism, I think it's pretty much a buzz religion these days. Um, and so that was a lot of my upbringing. I had a a relatively healthy upbringing, um, but heavily influenced by the church. Um, my mother kind of always said like Quote unquote, she knew I wasn't gonna make it. Like I just kind of was always a little bit against the grain versus my other sisters who were much more compliant. Um, and so for me, rebellion against the church started at 15. And it was this really extreme just like dissonance with. the world and how I saw it and how I was being told I should view it.
And it It was like a flip switch. Like I say a flip switched in nineteen ninety nine and my brain has never been the same or I've never been the same. Um, because I went from being a freshman in high school with a boyfriend and, you know, just living life to never leaving my room, cutting myself, starving myself, hating myself, and never being able to stop crying. Like it was So extreme this kind of flip of a switch. And My parents read my diary um at at some point during that time and It was their choice at the time to send me to Utah to live with uh a family for the summer. Um, I like to kind of add, like I think it's really important with our families and parents
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–1:55
2
What does it feel like to live with undiagnosed bipolar disorder?
1:55–3:22
3
How did growing up in a Mormon household shape Louise’s early life?
3:22–6:00
4
Why did substances become a way to escape the mental‑health storm?
6:00–12:23
5
How do the four major relationships become chapters of her life?
12:23–21:44
6
What happens when the manic highs suddenly crash?
21:44–25:38
7
How did pregnancy and motherhood change her experience with bipolar?
25:38–49:09
8
What impact did sobriety have on managing bipolar disorder?
49:09–1:11:31