Kanye West is giving a look into the mind of Kanye West when he’s dealing with one of his bipolar episodes.
The Ghost Town rapper opened up about his struggles with mental health with David Letterman in an upcoming episode of the acclaimed Netflix series, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman.
During their chat, Yeezy spoke on the importance of medicating himself every day to prevent himself from “ramping up” and entering a debilitating state of paranoia.
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He explained:
“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. And you start acting erratic, as TMZ would put it.”
For those who forgot, West made headlines last year when he sat down with TMZ for a controversial conversation where he tried to get philosophical about the concept of slavery — only to enrage the public by implying that slavery was a choice.
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We guess now, Ye’s attributing those comments to him being ramped up, which, as he explained to Letterman, has some intense effects on one’s psyche:
“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 41-year-old went on to reveal that things are even worse when he goes through a severe “episode.” Usually, these can land him in the hospital and cause him to become extraordinarily paranoid. He continued:
“When you’re in this state, you’re hyper-paranoid about everything. Everyone — this is my experience, other people have different experiences — everyone now is an actor. Everything’s a conspiracy. You feel the government is putting chips in your head. You feel you’re being recorded. You feel all these things.”
According to Kanye, those red pill-type delusions can even get worse from there. He added:
“You have this moment [where] you feel everyone wants to kill you. You pretty much don’t trust anyone.”
It doesn’t help that patients who exhibit these symptoms are usually restrained, drugged, and removed from their loved ones by hospitals — a harrowing ordeal Kanye personally went through, and is hoping to change by speaking out about his own experiences.
He revealed:
“They have this moment where they put you — they handcuff you, they drug you, they put you on the bed, and they separate you from everyone you know. That’s something that I am so happy that I experienced myself so I can start by changing that moment… When you are in that state, you have to have someone you trust. It is cruel and primitive to do that.”
The father-of-four said he wants doctors and the media to change the way they talk about and treat people who “get the stigma of crazy,” adding:
“They love to write you off. They love to cut your sentences off halfway. What you say doesn’t mean as much… It’s a health issue that has a strong stigma on it and people are allowed to say anything about it and discriminate in any way. This is like a sprained brain, like having a sprained ankle. And if someone has a sprained ankle, you’re not going to push on him more. With us, once our brain gets to a point of spraining, people do everything to make it worse. They do everything possible. They got us to that point and they do everything to make it worse.”
Kanye also hopes these critics can acknowledge that a part of genius usually comes from madness, and that their favorite creators might have mental health issues as well. He noted:
“That’s just the reality. If you want these crazy ideas and these crazy stages, this crazy music and this crazy way of thinking there’s a chance it might come from a crazy person.”
As for Kanye’s manic episodes, he said he feels “a heightened connection with the universe” when he’s “ramping up.” It’s good to hear he’s taking his meds regularly so he can manage this celestial geniusness.
Episodes of My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman — featuring interviews with West, Ellen DeGeneres, Tiffany Haddish, Lewis Hamilton, and Melinda Gates — premieres May 31 on Netflix.
Ch-ch-check out a teaser (below).
[Image via Netflix]
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