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I kept my bipolar disorder a secret for 24 years. Here’s why I stopped hiding

At times, my symptoms fueled my high-stakes career. But at other times, I felt swallowed by black clouds of darkness, and no one knew.
In a personal essay, podcaster Kimi Culp opens about the mental health struggle she kept secret for decades.
In a personal essay, podcaster Kimi Culp opens about the mental health struggle she kept secret for decades.Madeline Northway

When I was 22, I was hired to fetch coffees and work overnights at NBC News.

As a child, I dreamed of becoming a journalist. I imagined myself in a director’s chair across from astronauts, authors, rock stars and everyday people who face extraordinary situations. The human experience fascinated me. It still does.

Eventually, I graduated from fetching coffees and was offered the opportunity to tell stories. Finally! It was the beginning of a decades-long career questioning politicians in the Oval Office, crouching in the back of blacked-out vans on sting operations and comforting families in the wake of natural disasters. I was always drawn to this type of high-stakes storytelling.

All the while, I was living my own high-stakes story, navigating the highs and lows of a debilitating mental illness and keeping it a secret for fear of being judged and rejected.

Hiding my bipolar disorder became my other full-time job. I justified it because I was often able to use my symptoms to my advantage. The adrenaline of my manic highs fueled me. I was hopping on planes at all hours chasing stories, using my newfound creative bursts to write scripts at 2 a.m., down more coffee and meet the camera crew at 7 a.m. I was on fire. My bosses praised me. 

During the lows that followed, I sobbed in the safe confines of lonely hotel showers, feeling swallowed by black clouds of darkness. These were the extremes. Mostly, I lived in the middle — on a never-ending roller coaster with anxiety riding shotgun. 

I became an expert at the illusion of happiness, of normalcy. A cold spoon under swollen eyes before the press conference. A forced smile in the hallway.

I became an expert at the illusion of happiness, of normalcy. A cold spoon under swollen eyes before the press conference. A forced smile in the hallway. When I did have time away from work, I worked even harder to conceal the signs of my reality — medication packed away and carefully tucked into a side pocket of my overnight bag, no mention of therapy or psychiatry. I buried my truth alive. 

Eventually, I married the love of my life and had a child, a precious baby boy. I soothed his newborn cries through bottles full of formula from the local drugstore because I could not breastfeed, due to my medications. As I looked around at all the breastfeeding moms, I felt tremendous guilt for being unable to do the same. My shame grew heavier and the despair crept in. By comparing myself to other moms, I concluded that I was, in fact, not enough of a mother. And so it grew stronger — the illusion that everyone around me was normal and I was broken.

In a short period of time, I had two more children. The disparity in my life confused me, and it confused the people who loved me. I was, in fact, happily married with three healthy kids and a meaningful career in Hollywood. The periods of darkness in my inner world did not reflect the beauty of my outer world. I felt like a fraud. 

I had started a podcast, All The Wiser, which was growing more popular by the day. The heart of the show was brave truth-telling. I interviewed people about unthinkable circumstances — shark attacks, wrongful conviction, kidnappings — and the lessons they learned on the other side of suffering. 

Culp shared her diagnosis in an episode of her podcast.
Culp shared her diagnosis in an episode of her podcast.Madeline Northway

It started to sink in that each guest on the podcast had grown stronger in their suffering. I spent hundreds of hours valuing the truth in other people’s lives — it now felt dishonest to hide my own.

I was asking people to do the very thing I had not been willing to do. To be brave in my brokenness. In listening to their stories, I realized I could no longer bury my own story.

Finally, three years ago, I decided to stop hiding.

The day of my 43rd birthday I asked my dear friend and a fellow journalist to interview me about the secret I had been hiding for two decades and shared it on an episode of the podcast. In an instant, my story went from being known by less than a handful of people to thousands of people around the world, including old friends and colleagues, and faceless strangers I will never meet.

The day the episode aired, I shed my old narrative and took a bold leap into the light of being seen. I could barely open the door to leave my house. What would the neighbors think? The moms at school drop-off?

The responses came slowly: a voicemail here, a text message there, an email from a friend I knew in high school. I put my phone aside and logged off, too scared to look at them all at once. I just needed to keep breathing. And then the flood happened. I returned to my phone a few hours later to find hundreds of texts, direct messages and emails. Love washed over me. People leaned in a bit closer when we spoke. As if they wanted me to know they saw me.

The piece of me I had labeled unlovable was the very thing that made me human. I had been judging myself while the world was patiently waiting to embrace me. 

As a mother, wife and podcaster, speaking my truth about living with a chronic mental illness has been my most powerful and liberating act. I moved from shame and secrecy to freedom and service to others. I stopped denying my mental illness and, like magic, it stopped defining me. 

I stopped denying my mental illness and, like magic, it stopped defining me.

In the story I live now, I am not defined by a secret. Today, my faith defines me. My family defines me. My friends and the work I do in the world define me. 

I’ve come to understand the truth defines each of us, and it’s only in claiming and sharing our truth that we can be truly set free.