Last month, Deborah Atanasio was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. After she reached out for help and got the medication she needed to pick herself back up, she made a choice: to share her story rather than hide her condition.

“Hiding a mental health issue is exhausting. I am speaking up because I don’t want to feel lonely, and I don’t want others to feel alone. It angers me how mental health issues are still stigmatised,” Atanasio said.

Bipolar is a mental health condition that causes extreme mood swings that include emotional highs (mania or hypomania) and lows (depression).

The disorder impacts about two per cent of the population – that would mean about 10,000 people in Malta.

Atanasio, 38, has spoken out about mental health issues before. Back in 2019 she shared her experience with postpartum psychosis, a rare psychiatric condition.

Her first episode of psychosis happened soon after the birth of her first son seven years ago.

Back then she wrote: “It’s not easy to admit that the worst part of my life was the first year of becoming a mother…. I was referred to the perinatal mental health services at Mater Dei Hospital, following an urgent visit to a health centre.

“I was in no state to realise I had a mental health problem. I was suffering from postpartum psychosis – a rare psychiatric emergency characterised by a cocktail of ugly symptoms, including anxiety, depression, mania, insomnia, delusions, hallucinations and paranoia, among others.”

After seeking help, she started taking antipsychotics and went on with her life: having a second son, working full-time and running a support group within the NGO Parent-Infant Mental Health Alliance that offers support to mothers, fathers and the infant during this sensitive period.

She recently also started reading for a master’s degree in family therapy.

But in February the pressures of it all started to weigh down on her and she suffered her second psychotic episode – starting with being manic, before falling into a depression. She had been neglecting to take her medication.

“Negative thoughts flooded my mind. I was spiralling out of control. I recognised what was happening to me and called my psychiatrist,” she said.

Atanasio was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and her medication increased. She is now settling into her new reality and is determined to talk about it because she knows there must be others like her who are not realising they are facing mental health issues.

“Bipolar disorder is a severe mental illness characterised by extreme mood swings and changes in energy levels. In my case, I fell into a deep depression, triggered by extreme feelings of emotional loneliness two weeks before turning manic and having a psychotic relapse. During the depression, I couldn’t eat, sleep, take care of myself, became irresponsible towards my family, lacked energy and concentration, was constantly tearful and skipped my anti-psychotic medication.”

During the manic phase, Atanasio felt a huge rush of conflicting emotions – was in overdrive, as if she was “on turbo”.

“I was upped the dose of anti-psychotics and started on lithium to treat the bipolar. Now that medication started working, I feel numb and flat, compared to the extreme emotions I experienced before.

“I do not like the ‘new normal’ right now, and I sometimes miss the periods of mania that I felt made me very productive and creative.”

She has now chosen to take those feelings with her in personal therapy which helps her process and reflect on past and present experiences, by letting herself to be emotionally vulnerable in order to heal and grow.

She is inviting anyone who is going through the problem to reach out through the support group run by the Parent-Infant Mental Health Alliance by sending an e-mail on pimha.malta@gmail.com.