'Its been good for people to just calm the f*ck down!' - We talk lockdown, bipolar and workplace stigma with Instagram inspiration
One of our favourite social media accounts to follow is Virginie Cadieux Chevrier’s Instagram profile dedicated to normalising mental health and embracing challenging emotions. We sat down to discuss her approach to the topic of mental health, and find out what inspires her open and honest style online.
In this the first of a two part interview, she shares her thoughts on lockdown in Canada, how her experience of bipolar II impacts on her working life, and the stigma which stills persists around the disorder…
How would you describe your own relationship with mental and physical health at present?
Lockdown has actually been a good experience for me. The fact I don’t have to travel to work makes it easier to manage my day. I wake up pretty early, at 5:30 or 6 am, and start working at like 7 am - I realised I function better in the mornings. But if I want to take a nap, I can take a nap, if I want to go for a run, I can go for a run, if I want to have a third lunch - I can! So it’s helped me feel good about myself because I can do stuff that I wouldn't be able to do at work.
Also having bipolar disorder often makes me really tired, so I have trouble maintaining a social life. I'm a very, very social person, but I don't like going to parties anymore or crowded places like restaurants and bars. So not having to find an excuse every week or feeling guilty for saying no to things like that has been really refreshing.
That’s interesting because we hear a lot about how lockdown might adversely affect people’s mental health, but you think it can actually be beneficial?
We live in a world where over productivity is rewarded and expected of everyone. If we say to others, “Look, I need to take a day off” or “I really need to relax” or “I'm tired”, we almost need to justify why we're saying that. Allowing yourself to take some time off, to just relax and do nothing is often not well perceived, people think you’re being lazy. So I think lockdown has been good for people to just calm the fuck down, not be so busy and not fill their schedules completely to show they’re being productive all the time.
Agreed! Can you talk a little about how your relationship with mental health has changed over time?
I was going to say it’s been a long, slow process, but it is still a slow process. I think the best thing you can do is accept who you are, and I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that I have bipolar disorder and it affects my personality and my behaviour in many ways.
I used to drink a lot. Like I was a heavy binge drinker - maybe four or five times a week I blacked out, puking, sleeping with people whose names I don’t remember, just to fill the void I had in my head. My anxiety was so high all the time that I felt I had to have a drink. I also used to have an eating disorder for a while, for maybe 5-6 years, I lost maybe 40 pounds, possibly more.
So yeah, I was in pretty bad shape. I had to change a lot of my habits, big lifestyle changes. I still drink, but sometimes I don't for like months when I see that it's not going to do me any good. I stopped smoking cigarettes, let go of toxic relationships - former friends, an ex-boyfriend - and I changed jobs. So pretty much changed everything.
When were you diagnosed with bipolar disorder exactly?
It was July 2017, so this month is my 3 year bipolar birthday!
What influence does your bipolar typically have on your day to day life?
I'm going to pick out my job because, in terms of social life and friends, I get around pretty good. I'm a sweet and a nice person, I've never had problems having friends. But in terms of work, I've never really been able to have a job for more than a year. It makes me really anxious, not just for what I'm going to do with my life, but am I going to be able to hold a job for more than a year? How am I going to make some money in the long term? Can I have kids in future if that’s the case?
My bipolar really affects me in terms of motivation and energy. I never know if I'm going to wake up with the right amount of energy to work. I also have an ADHD. Normally people who have bipolar disorder have ADD or ADHD as well, which makes it really hard to focus. So sometimes I have the focus to work for like one or two hours, and then I'm done for like two days. So it's complicated because when I'm able to work, I'm really competent; I work well and I'm really easy to work with. It's just, I never know if I'm going to be able to give what is expected of me at work.
That must make it really difficult to plan in advance?
Yeah, exactly. It's already hard with friends and family, but they do understand because they love you, but with work it's different. Even if your colleagues appreciate you, there's a limit to how much understanding that they can have. For now, my colleagues don't know that I have bipolar disorder. I haven't decided to tell them, it’s not useful at the moment. I don't see them anyway and they're really satisfied with the work I've been doing recently. But yeah, it's a struggle and I get worried, like when sometimes I have meetings, I'm so anxious that I'm not sure if I’ll be able to go. It’s unpredictable, and in the corporate world, there’s no place for that.
Have you told any employers in the past about your bipolar diagnosis?
No, mainly because I’ve not had the opportunity to do so. When I got diagnosed, I quit my job like six months later to go travelling for another six months. I went to Australia, Asia, and worked in the north of Canada for a while, so that was cool. But anyways, no, I've never told an employer, a boss or colleague about my bipolar, because I didn't have the opportunity to, or maybe didn't trust them.
Do you feel like if you’d told them you’d be seen differently? Is there a potential stigma around bipolar in the workplace?
Yeah. I don't think that people understand clearly what bipolar disorder is. What we see in movies is not what it’s like in real life. In movies, people with bipolar are always portrayed as violent, they hit people, they throw stuff. There is no violence at all, I've met a lot of people with bipolar and nobody's aggressive, at worst they’re irritated!
I don’t want people to think I am going to be crying or throwing tantrums, and then be super hyped, because it's not about that. I have bipolar type II, so I get hypomania, which is like a less severe form of mania. I have energy, but I don't go overboard, I don't spend like tons of money and say crazy shit, it's very mild. But I do get really, really depressed, and that's the part that people don't get. They think either you're sad or super excited, but it's more to do with how your motivation, focus or energy levels change.
I guess the public perception is that it's kind of black and white. People think you’re either super depressed or you're super manic, but in your experience it's more nuanced than that?
Part of it is because that's the term we're using - bipolar literally means two poles. So I understand why people don't understand it well, because it's really more than just being black or white. There's a lot of inbetweens and symptoms that we don't talk about that people don't know. And these are often the worst symptoms. Being sad is the least of my worries, being sad is okay, it's being depressed and it's being too tired to do anything, that is the worst.
Stay tuned to the Burnout Lab to hear more from Virginie in part two of our interview. To keep up to date with her latest stories around mental health, you can find her on Instagram as @littleblondebipolar.
Virginie Cadieux Chevrier is a mental health advocate, Instagrammer and keen traveller based in Montreal, Canada. By sharing her own experiences with mental health she aims to inspire others to embrace their own emotional wellbeing, whilst normalising public stigma surrounding the topic.
