Mental health: a conversation that starts and ends with depression

My name is Michelle Ní Chonaill and according to every Wes Anderson wet dream & 500 Days of Summer fan I am a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, or to put it in scientific terms, I have type 2 Bipolar.

I often inject some comedy into it by introducing myself as a bipolar, bilingual, bisexual woman. I’m all for comedy; it’s my job, I get paid to do it, but there’s a line: Bipolar is a condition that is often the butt of jokes or stigmatised to talk about “crazy” / “emotional women;” Or in the newest craze it is glorify and sexualised in TV and on Film.

However it’s far from a joke, sexual fantasy or a derogatory term for displaying emotion.

I have been diagnosed and medicated for just over a year, but have exhibited symptoms since the age of fourteen.

After many years of being falsely diagnosed as suffering from depression I repeated my final year of Law at UCC in 2012 due to “depression” and self harm. I was finally diagnosed in March 2015 by an excellent, yet highly expensive, psychiatrist, who I see weekly at a cost of €500 per month due to the backlog in the public system.

Fortunately I am in a position to cover the costs privately, but unfortunately not everyone is, and although 2% of the population suffer with Bipolar, the psychiatric community believe a further 3% exist either undiagnosed or are falsely categorized as having depression.

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