My Story: Rwenshaun and bipolar disorder

Rweshaun, a popular athlete in school, realized he needed help despite getting good grades and holding down a full-time job. Watch his story here from getting a bipolar diagnosis to becoming a leader and mental health advocate.

Transcript

00:00

RWENSHAUN: None of my friends at school knew why I left school. They never knew that I was in the hospital. I was ashamed to even talk about it.

00:06

I was an athlete. I was popular, and I was a black man. Those types of things are not things that we actually go through.

00:15

So I've been living with bipolar disorder for 14 years now. Even as a younger child, I had issues dealing with anger

00:23

and then also sleeping. We never really associated me not wanting to be bothered with people or me wanting

00:30

to stay in my room for extended periods of time as a symptom of depression. My initial break where I realized

00:38

that I needed some actual real help was my sophomore year in college. I suffered a knee injury playing football

00:44

and went through a period where I had to have surgery. So I really was secluded in my room then because I never left my room, didn't go to class.

00:51

That started that cycle of me having racing thoughts. I didn't sleep for about two weeks.

00:57

Over a matter of six weeks, that's when I lost about 25 pounds. My mom, she could tell that something was going on with me

01:03

just by my voice. They took me to the hospital. Initially when I got the diagnosis, receiving it from someone who don't necessarily look like you

01:12

or that you don't really trust, it kind of went in one ear and out the other. My first thing was it was not-- I couldn't be me. For a man at a very young age, we tell them, do not cry.

01:22

You know, you can't show any type of emotion. It's a weakness for you to do that. Especially as a black man, you're a target in so many different avenues.

01:30

I'm gonna go back to trying to do the same things that I was doing before to try to get by. I self-medicated with alcohol.

01:36

I was going through a fifth of tequila every other day, and I did that for over three years. At the time, though, I had my best grades.

01:43

And I was holding down a full-time job at the same time. No one were the wiser that something else was really wrong with me and I was tearing up inside.

01:51

I attempted suicide three times, attempted to overdose on pills twice. And last time, I put a gun to my head and pulled the trigger,

01:58

and it jammed on me. That was my actual wake-up call saying that I'm ready to accept it.

02:05

Once I started back treatment and understanding what bipolar disorder looked like for me, I wanted to share with others and learn what

02:13

the clinical aspect was like. That's what prompted me to go get my master's degree. But then also, while I was in my master's degree program,

02:22

I started to read things. And I was like, yo, this-- this is not gonna work with the population that I'm wanting to serve.

02:28

Because I know my people are not participating in a lot of research studies. I wanted to challenge it to actually be inclusive of my people.

02:36

My motto is be who you needed when you were younger. I needed someone that looked like me, someone that was able to relate to me without even always verbally

02:45

communicating. The individuals that I work with, man, we're not-- we're not even sitting in my office. We're playing basketball, or we're in the gym working out.

02:53

Or we're going to the park, you know, and creating the atmosphere where they feel comfortable. Although you have this particular diagnosis,

02:59

you can still be happy. You can still continue to thrive and continue to live and continue to live with bipolar disorder instead