Kanye for President??

Kanye West has been in the news lately. He suddenly decided to run for president in 2020 and he held a rally in North Carolina during which he behaved very strangely, saying some extremely inappropriate things.

Shortly after this, his wife, Kim Kardashian, wrote a letter, asking for empathy and compassion from the public, saying that her husband has Bipolar Disorder and hinting that his family has been unsuccessful in getting him to accept treatment.

As a psychiatrist who has been treating people with mental health conditions for decades, I can see that Mr. West’s case is both typical and atypical. On the one hand, he appears to exhibit the same type of grandiosity, impulsiveness, poor judgment, poor insight and extreme talkativeness that anyone in a manic episode would have.

Fame, wealth and connections are bad for your mental health:

On the other hand, due to his fame, wealth and personal contacts, Mr. West is in the unique position of being able to act on his grandiose delusions. Many people in the throes of mania could think that they are best suited to be the president but almost none of them have the wherewithal to act on these ideas.

The vast majority of people in a manic episode might have all sorts of ideas about being destined for greatness, but Mr. West is in a rare position of being able to manifest these ideas, and sadly, this isn’t good for him or for his family.

Mr. West revealed some extremely private information about his family during the rally. Afterwards, he continued to speak out on Twitter, accusing his wife of trying to have him committed and saying he’s been trying to divorce her. These statements must be extremely hurtful to Ms. Kardashian and to the whole family.

Mr. West’s fame and wealth give him a platform and his audience is hanging on every word, even when the words are driven by mental illness. The average person struggling with a manic episode has a lot less opportunity to embarrass themselves and their family on such a grand and public scale.

Mania makes you feel like everything’s great:

One of the characteristics of people with Bipolar Disorder, as I mentioned above, is a lack of insight into their condition. The manic individual feels great and doesn’t identify their increased energy and wild ideas as problematic.

For the average person suffering from mania, this lack of insight is problematic but for a wealthy celebrity, it can be catastrophic, as they have access to far more resources with which to engage in self-destructive and dangerous behaviors, all the while thinking that everything is good.

Unfortunately, some celebrities are idolized by their entourage, and if the celebrity sees nothing wrong, the entourage can develop a collective blindness to the problem. It’s like the fairy tale of the Emperor wearing no clothes and the entourage being so much in their thrall that they can’t see that he’s walking around naked, embarrassing himself and his family for everyone to see.

The entourage doesn’t necessarily have your back:

Wealthy celebrities are almost always surrounded by a large entourage. They have agents, managers, publicists, personal assistants, and assorted hangers-on. Some of these people want the best for the celebrity and some are completely self-serving.

If the celebrity says, “I want to run for president,” some members of the entourage might think that this would make for great publicity, not understanding – or perhaps, not caring – that encouraging the delusion can only end badly for the celebrity and their family.

Some members of the celebrity’s entourage are happy to enable all of the celebrity’s worst behaviors. They procure drugs, liquor, sex partners; gambling opportunities – whatever the celebrity wants to indulge in – even when this is to the detriment of the celebrity’s well-being. Look at what happened not that long ago to Tiger Woods.

Publicists might be glad for the celebrity to get caught up in a scandal because in their mind, any publicity is good publicity.  Poor Justin Bieber was being enabled in some pretty self-destructive behavior, just a few years ago.

The dark side of fame:

There are so many people who want to be famous but they don’t recognize the dark side of fame. When you’re surrounded by people who benefit from your irrational, self-destructive behavior, there’s no-one around to look out for you. When most of your posse has their own selfish motives for associating with you, how can you trust that anyone has your best interests at heart?

Celebrities tend to attract some pretty self-serving, unethical people who are prepared to do whatever it takes to maintain their position adjacent to fame and fortune. These are often human leeches who offer very little but benefit greatly from their association with the celebrity.

When the celebrity happens to suffer from mental illness, these unethical people can make the situation even worse, sometimes keeping the celebrity from receiving the help that they need. Like any abusive individual, the members of the entourage might fear that if the celebrity were to receive help, they might lose their status and all the perks that go along with it.

I have no way of knowing what is actually the case for Kanye West, but one thing that’s clear: He never should have been supported in holding that rally for his presidential bid.

The bigger the platform, the greater the fall:

Mr. West was clearly unwell at the time, and encouraging someone who is ill to have such a huge platform is tremendously harmful to this individual. In essence, his entourage appears to have allowed Mr. West to shoot himself in the foot.

As his wife beseeched the public, Mr. West is deserving of some empathy and compassion, but we should also see him as a cautionary tale of how fame and fortune mixes very poorly with mental illness.

With their lack of insight, poor judgment and extreme impulsiveness during mania, it’s difficult enough for the average person with Bipolar Disorder to seek help and to go along with treatment. For a celebrity such as Kanye West, it can become nearly impossible.

If we look at other celebrities who suffered from mental health issues, we can see that many of them died young. Michael Jackson was being given dangerous drugs to help him deal with his chronic insomnia and it killed him. Heath Ledger had mental health problems and was so over-medicated that he, too, passed away. I could go on and on.

It might be a heady combination to be rich, famous and well-connected, but when you add mental illness into the mix, it can become a deadly cocktail. I feel sorry for Mr. West and for his family. I hope his story has a happier ending.

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