In 2011 I was a third-year medical student at Harvard Medical School. I was on my psychiatry rotation — and I had a secret.
My attending doctors remarked on how well I supported our patients. I was grateful but felt as though my familiarity with and deep empathy for their symptoms and medication side effects were like a neon sign that at any moment could out me.
Using the words “bipolar disorder” in reference to myself was brand-new to me then. The images I had of people with bipolar disorder just didn’t fit with my sense of who I was.
