I loved this book so much I decided to make it a BookOfCinz book club pick. Recommended to those interested in memoir and mental health.
Her story serves as a great reminder about how we should always strive for compassion in a society that ridicules and does not put in the effort to understand those with neurodivergence or mental illness.
This book is not a tale of triumph over mental illness, rather, Ikpi gives an honest account into the highs and the lows and how she found some peace within a life turned upside down. There’s a lot of stigma surrounding mental illness in the United States, a stigma that is often heightened for people of color. I also appreciate her sharing her journey as a Nigerian American woman, given that the face of mental health in the United States is still so often a white one. While everyone has a unique experience with mental health and mental illness, I suspect that many who have grappled with Bipolar disorder in particular will find some solace and solidarity in I’m Telling the Truth, but I’m Lying. As someone in the mental health field and as someone who has experienced mental illness, I found her sharing so raw and real. I most enjoyed this book’s profound honesty, like Ikpi’s initial refusal to accept her diagnosis when she learned about it, how she just could not fathom having to take medication for Bipolar II for the rest of her life. Viscerally raw and honest, the result is an exploration of the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of who we are-and the ways, as honest as we try to be, each of these stories can also be a lie.Ī powerful story about Nigerian American author Bassey Ikpi’s experiences navigating her newfound Bipolar II diagnosis, as well as the anxiety she faced throughout her life. But something wasn’t right-beneath the façade of the confident performer, Bassey’s mental health was in a precipitous decline, culminating in a breakdown that resulted in hospitalization and a diagnosis of Bipolar II.ĭetermined to learn from her experiences-and share them with others-Bassey became a mental health advocate and has spent the fourteen years since her diagnosis examining the ways mental health is inextricably intertwined with every facet of ourselves and our lives. Her early years in America would come to be defined by tension: an assimilation further complicated by bipolar II and anxiety that would go undiagnosed for decades.īy the time she was in her early twenties, Bassey was a spoken word artist and traveling with HBO's Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam, channeling her experiences into art. Four years later, she and her mother joined her father in Stillwater, Oklahoma -a move that would be anxiety ridden for any child, but especially for Bassey. A deeply personal collection of essays exploring Nigerian-American author Bassey Ikpi’s experiences navigating Bipolar II and anxiety throughout the course of her life.īassey Ikpi was born in Nigeria in 1976.
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