A lot was happening with and around Kanye West last week, and we only covered a fraction of it. It’s always tricky – people want to acknowledge that Kanye is bipolar and unmedicated, but we also need to acknowledge that he’s a complete a–hole who is desperate for attention. “Bipolar” isn’t a catch-all excuse for being racist, for promoting violent ideologies, for body-shaming women, for being a misogynist or for being anti-Semitic. On Friday and Saturday, Ye was at it again. I won’t even do a comprehensive breakdown of all that was said and posted on social media, suffice to say that Kanye got his social media accounts suspended for anti-Semitism:
Kanye “Ye” West’s Instagram account has been restricted for violating the platform’s policies, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
A Meta spokesperson confirms to THR that the company deleted content from the rapper’s Instagram account that uses the @kanyewest handle. Additionally, although the account is still visible, a restriction has been placed on it, according to the rep. Meta has a policy of putting restrictions on users after repeated violations, which could temporarily prevent the user from sharing posts, writing comments or sending direct messages. The Meta rep did not specify which content was pulled or how long the restriction would last.
On Friday, the performer returned to Twitter after a lengthy hiatus, where he criticized Meta chair Mark Zuckerberg and tweeted, in part, “How you gone kick me off instagram.” Elon Musk, who this week confirmed plans to buy Twitter, responded to West’s tweet by posting, “Welcome back to Twitter, my friend!”
This follows West having recently posted to Instagram an exchange purportedly between himself and Diddy in which West used language criticized by other social media users as anti-Semitic. The post has since been deleted.
West also received backlash for comments he made about Jared Kushner during the rapper’s recent appearance on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight that were perceived as perpetuating Jewish stereotypes.
After all of that, he went on Twitter and threatened to go “death con” on Jewish people, so his Twitter account was suspended as well. Celebrities are now speaking out about Kanye’s vile anti-Semitism and hate speech. He was previewing this ramp up all of last week too, as THR notes – the anti-Semitic dog whistles about Jared Kushner, and some stuff he said about who is “controlling” the Kardashians. The messages he posted to and from Puffy were crazy as well – Puffy was trying to reach out to him as a friend and help him and Kanye told Puffy that he (Puffy) was being controlled by Jewish people.
Meanwhile, “sources close to Kanye” told Page Six that Kanye’s friends are incredibly worried about him. He’s not sleeping, he’s ranting day and night, he’s alienating all of his friends and employees. Sources fear that his behavior is “the result of a mental break, and they believe it’s the most serious such episode that the rapper has suffered.” I mean… I remember Kanye having manic episodes which were as bad as this if not worse. The man was in the middle of a full-blown episode in the Trump White House. He had a complete breakdown and needed to be hospitalized right after Kim was robbed in Paris.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Fox news.
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- Paris, FRANCE – Kanye West sports busted lip and bruises as he arrives to the Givenchy Show duringg Paris Fashion Week – Womenswear Spring/Summer 2023 Pictured: Kanye West BACKGRID USA 3 OCTOBER 2022 BYLINE MUST READ: Dede / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Paris, FRANCE – Kanye West sports busted lip and bruises as he arrives to the Givenchy Show duringg Paris Fashion Week – Womenswear Spring/Summer 2023 Pictured: Kanye West BACKGRID USA 3 OCTOBER 2022 BYLINE MUST READ: Dede / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Paris, FRANCE – Kanye West sports busted lip and bruises as he arrives to the Givenchy Show duringg Paris Fashion Week – Womenswear Spring/Summer 2023 Pictured: Kanye West BACKGRID USA 3 OCTOBER 2022 BYLINE MUST READ: Dede / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Paris, FRANCE – Kanye West sports busted lip and bruises as he arrives to the Givenchy Show duringg Paris Fashion Week – Womenswear Spring/Summer 2023 Pictured: Kanye West BACKGRID USA 3 OCTOBER 2022 BYLINE MUST READ: Dede / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
He is really a sick vile man. I So feel for his kids.
Agreed. The sympathy I have is all for his kids.
In the pictures above he looks like a homeless person in need of psychiatric attention. May homeless people forgive me for comparing them to Ye. Someone told me that he is doing all this to draw attention to his ugly couture collection. If true what a crappy way to make money. Mr. West must seek professional help at once.
His behavior and look are in line with being in a manic episode, IMO. Im obviously not in his life so I cant say for sure, but I do have a bipolar family member so I have seen many a manic episode up close.
His need to be seen as relevant and controversial is what we are seeing most.
He is super embarrassing and problematic right now
It seems his bipolar and narcissistic disorder have merged.
Hopefully he gets better soon and can focus on his music
Not only is he anti-Semitic, he is also stupid. The correct term is DEFCON, and it refers to a starter of readiness, not a command to kill.
Yet he wasn’t suspended for racism… good that at least he got suspended! Hopefully his accounts are terminated and he can join trump so they could commiserate together!
He’s been suspended before for racism on Instagram, when he lashed out at Trevor Noah.
Please don’t come @ me for saying this, I want to empathize with him, and I want to feel bad for his struggles with his mental health, but his rants are so violent, so hateful, and frankly, he scares me. As a mom, I worry for the safety of his children around him. I genuinely hope he gets the help he needs.
I think you can have sympathy for someone’s mental illness and it’s effect on their loved ones, and still acknowledge that he’s a racist, misogynist, terrible human being – none of which was caused by aforementioned mental illness.
I have a couple of people in my life with BPD, and while it’s a difficult illness to manage it doesn’t make on a racist. I don’t know much about schizophrenia but I suspect it’s similar. The paranoia attaches itself to pre existing biases, not create ones.
@Bettyrose, 100% in agreement. The cause of Kanye antisemitism is not his mental illness.
@Scarlett, we can empathize with Kanye’s mental illness and also be problemed with Kanye views.
@Bettyrose “The paranoia attaches itself to pre existing biases, not create ones.”…I did not know this , learned something new today. His rants sound even more hateful now that I know this. Scary!!
I have a feeling many of his biases were not preexisting but have been fed to him in the last decade or so and he internalized them and started spewing them as his mental health deteriorated. Racism is always taught. He never appeared to be racist until relatively recently (the last decade or so). Maybe the wrong people are around him or he’s been reading real crap. (ETA: Oops. Forgot he said he doesn’t read.) Either way, what he’s become is indefensible. He used to apologize when he acted out and people called him on it. He seemed contrite. Not so anymore. His God-like complex demonstrates severe impairment. Like Marilyn Manson type. (No, not saying he is or would ever be a serial killer. Just that his madness has reached a horrifying level.)
I disagree that the paranoia attaches to existing biases in all cases. While that may be true in some, my very personal experience (and education) with a family member suggests otherwise. It can attach to something one reads or sees or experiences when one no longer has the ability to process correctly and discern and understand. Fiction becomes truth.
I do think Kayne was racist before any existing mental illness, assuming he is mentally ill, so I’m in no way minimizing his behavior here.
But I don’t think it’s appropriate to suggest that someone who fixates on race or a particular person or religion, etc. was always that way and the mental illness just exacerbated it. Same for dementia – that can cause some wicked, drastic change in attitudes and behavior.
I’m not a clinical psychologist and said I was speculating. Very sadly a friend of mine has an adult step son who she raised as her own that recently developed schizophrenia. He began having very paranoid delusions about her. I suspect he always worried she didn’t love him as much as her biological children. I personally know that’s not the case. He’s her son. But my guess is the mental illness attached itself to a pre existing insecurity.
Josephine – I agree that not *all* delusions are attached to existing biases. Just from my personal experience with this disease.
When manic, my family member rips all the wires out of the wall because she thinks her mother in law is spying on her through the walls. She thinks her husband and his sister are sleeping together. These are not things she thinks in real life, to my knowledge. Her delusions keep firmly in the family.
However, that is just my experience. I have no clue whats up with Kanye’s delusions.
@bettyrose. This. Pre-existing biases and prejudices!!👏🏼👏🏼
You’re not wrong for having sympathy for someone with a mental illness! It sucks and they didnt ask for it.
However, where Kanye loses that sympathy, for me, is that he is openly unmedicated, AND his manic episodes have real consequences for his family , and the world because he is famous. And yet he still refuses to manage his illness.
There’s nothing wrong with what you’ve said. Untreated mental illness can be empathised with while still acknowledging the person is a terrible human being completely independent from that mental illness. I also think that it’s very sad to see someone struggling with their mental health to such a degree and wish for his own sake (and his kids’) that he’d medicate himself appropriately.
Mania can make you do (amongst other things) impulsive things, go on rants, not sleep, feel extreme emotions. It does not make you say racist things. It doesn’t make you say antisemitic things. If that’s what they reach for when they’re manic it was already there on some level. I’ve known plenty of bipolar people and none of them turned to hate speech when they were manic. The WLM shirts were not something just impulsively made in the midst of a manic episode, like a tweet or IG post. That took time and planning and effort to design and make and deliberation to showcase. He could have pumped the brakes on those at any point, but he didn’t.
My husband is pretty convinced this is mostly stunting. Years ago I’d have agreed, but he’s bought into his BS so much he’s delusional and his mental health deteriorates every year. He’s a very sick, very awful man.
What a useless POS. It does a huge disservice to anyone suffering from mental disorders to link his in any way to his anti-Semitism.
Kanye West hates Jewish people. That’s not his mental illness. That’s just who he really is.
Yes, this!
And Britney lost her freedom for 13 years for so much less…
This.
I pray Kim takes him to court to ensure supervised visits only between him and his kids after assessments for the kids and Kanye with a professional because who knows what the he** he is saying and doing in front of them. Disgusting and tragic that his behavior is allowed to continue unchecked. He is hurting more than himself.
It boggles my mind that the world is watching this man’s mental breakdown and there is no way for a health practitioner to step in and get his Heath under control. I understand why people don’t like bipolar meds – they flatline your emotions and for a creative, it must be agony to have zero interest in your work… (and pharma isn’t interested in spending billions more to make something with fewer side effects like that when what they have already does the primary job)
But there has to be a limit somewhere. Something terrible is going to happen to him and it’s going to be something everyone could see coming from a decade of breakdowns. It’s not just him; there will be thousands of everyday people doing this same thing but without the publicity – ranting at ethnicities, stalking former partners… refusing to medicate – and still nothing changes in health or pharma. It’s like society sees mental health neurodivergence as a write off.
I really appreciate this viewpoint. A lot of people — and a lot of commenters on this post — lose/abandon the ability to understand mental illness once it crosses a certain threshold of what makes them uncomfortable. Yes, the antisemitism is disgusting, but these behaviors — thinking your friends are being controlled, manic diatribes, etc,, — are really standard for someone unmedicated in a state of psychosis. Kanye‘s hate speech is harmful and needs to stop, but he also needs treatment.
Racism and anti-Semitism are not excused by mental illness. Many people have mental illnesses and manage not to be bigoted jerks.
Yes, a lot of his actions are dictated by his BP. However, the actual antisemitism and racism isn’t a part of that. BP people don’t just go on racist tirades because they’re bipolar, they do it because they’re racist and bipolar.
Accountability is a somewhat grey area when it comes to taking meds and the resulting mania. It’s his right not to do so, even if it negatively affects his life. Because he’s unmedicated he can’t control his mania and the behaviors that go alongside it, such as the rants and the paranoia. However, he should be held accountable that the focus of those things is his legitimate racism and antisemitism. He doesn’t get a free pass for that.
I’m sympathetic to him in many ways. My grandmother was schizophrenic and although she took medication it was very outdated and didn’t help her nearly as effectively as newer medications would. She was too paranoid to change medication, so she stayed undermedicated. It made life around her difficult, because she would do things like accuse me of flushing a diamond ring she’d misplaced down the toilet. She had many episodes while unmedicated that profoundly affected my mother as a child.
It’s especially hard for people with mental illness with paranoid features to trust the process and find meds that work for them. BP meds are notorious for their side-effects so I can understand his reluctance. But he’s destroying his career, he ruined his marriage, and he might be destroying his relationship with his children. He’s self-destructing and if this continues he’s going to become a pariah in the industry he loves and wants to be a part of.
In college I had a friend whose behavior was suddenly very concerning. I went to my psych professor for advice, and he said essentially that they have to hurt themselves or others to get anything to happen. She eventually did try to hurt herself.
We are long over due for a discussion about how this line isn’t working. We can’t take custody of people or remove their rights for frivolous things, but I also think some people need intervention much earlier and they (and their families and communities) are suffering as a result.
Yeah, I remember Kim saying a few years ago that they really couldn’t do ANYTHING about the situation. And when I had relatives going downhill, nothing could be done until they got themselves into serious harm. You have to hit bottom, break the law, hurt yourself or someone else before it’s severe enough for others to be permitted to intervene and override their free will.
Please do not demonize those working in industry to improve medications for bipolar disorder. I am a pharmacist of 20 years with a daughter with bipolar disorder. Kanye does not represent me or my family nor most families dealing with bipolar disorder. Medications have improved tremendously and can save lives. Please look on PubMed for current research. The same site Dr Fauci publishes his research. I thought this site valued science.
Thank you for the work you’re doing. It’s very important work and pretty thankless.
I’m not from the US so I don’t have to deal with the “Big Pharma” BS in my country but the way many Americans accuse “Big Pharma” of literally avoiding developing drugs or improving them is so insane and so untrue. Just because drug companies are big corporations and just because the pharmaceutical industry works the way it works in the US doesn’t mean those companies aren’t doing anything to help people.
From a purely cynical, moneymaking perspective it makes logical sense to improve meds as much as possible because if your medicine gives better results with fewer side-effects obviously word will get out and people will want your medicine over your competitors’. It’s common sense.
From his eyes and his body he looks like he isn’t sleeping or bathing. I’m sure he is in a manic episode but that doesn’t make him anti-semitic, that just takes away the filter for him to say what he normally just thinks in his head.
Yep. He’s manic AF right now.
Not that he had any filter in the first place 🙁
I’m so tired of people using mental health as an excuse to be a hateful pos. Done with him when he said slavery was a choice. His behavior is due to his hateful and ignorant nature, not due to bipolar disorder or any facts.
This. Being bipolar doesn’t make you racist, misogynist, or anti semitic. Kanye has always been a worthless POS but people made excuses for him because “I like his music”. black women have been sounding the alarm about him for years but of course, as usual, we were ignored.
And speaking of BW DO NOT INVOKE HIS MOTHER’S NAME. BW are not mules here to fix everyone’s problems. She’s been dead for over a decade and I doubt even if she was alive he would listen to her.
Probably not 🙁
I feel bad for her even if she’s dead. She was an English professor and her son is proud to brag he’s never read a book? HOW?!?!
You can be a person with mental illness who isn’t an a$$hole. As many other public breaks as this man has had and as much money as he has, if he was a person with any shred of decency, he would installed some kind of gatekeeping system to keep him out of public view when he is in a manic episode. That he hasn’t done that – if for no other reason than to spare his children the future pain of discovering all this – there’s no hope for him. He’s truly the Richard Wagner of his generation, albeit a different and arguably lite version.
Richard Wagner the composer?
Or Robert Wagner, sometimes husband of Natalie Wood?
Richard Wagner. He wrote a lot of anti-semitic stuff later in his career.
The composer. Sorry I wasn’t clear on that and thanks, Jaded.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Richard-Wagner-German-composer/Wagners-anti-Semitism
As someone who has battled depression for decades I believe very much in the phrase your mental illness isn’t your fault but it is your responsibility. Thanks to Marcus Parks for that. Take some responsibility and stop acting like a spoiled child.
So much this. ESPECIALLY when your mental illness involves delusions and/or hallucinations.
This man showed his true colours so many years ago — from the moment he went on the stage to denigrate Taylor on behalf of Beyonce (who didn’t need defending) in 2009 and when he went off on George Bush for Katrina in 2005! Then he dealt with Amber Rose to elevate Kim (in his mind). He’s been showing himself. He kept being excused. Now he’s doing his most damaging stuff to coincide with publicity for his projects which are not great in themselves – no one can tell me those Yeezy sneakers are a good thing. He needs constant and continuous help and time away from the public. I honestly wonder how Kim feels and thinks about her choices, knowing this man had serious mental health issues and she still made all these children with him. Her responsibilities to her children, to ensure their mental health is managed, are extremely hefty given how serious his situation appears to be. I wish her and her kids all the best. I wonder if Amber muses about the bullet she dodged.
My doctor would get so angry when something tragic/violent would be reported in the news.
It would be said of course this person who committed the crime has something wrong with them.
She said sometimes people are just evil. She’s like how else to explain the Nazis.
Did all of Germany suddenly become mentally ill?
The “Jew rants”?
MrsBanjo you are right, Noki knows what he/she wrote!!
Vile and disgusting man are the only words I can think of, enough of him already.
It’s important to separate the antisemitism, racism, and hate from Kanye’s mental illness. Mental illness does not make people racist or antisemetic. It has not caused these beliefs.
I think its important to not assume the mental illness in and of itself caused all the -isms you listed, or to assume that anyone who is mentally ill will behave this way….but to say they are never ever connected for anyone is not correct either, IMO.
Someone who has lost touch with reality is very susceptible to conspiracy theories etc. He could have read something or heard something, and having lost his ability to think in a rational, organized fashion, latched onto it as truth and incorporated it into his delusions. that is something that is real and happens.
It’s truly able-ist and heartbreaking when people get on a high horse and blame DELUSIONAL people who are miles away from reality, in the grip of non-stop delusions, suffering from a brain disease they have zero control over, unable to distinguish fact from fiction, and say that there is “no excuse” when those delusions happen to be about ethnic groups.
People suffering from psychosis can have delusions about groups of firefighters, groups of mice and rats, and groups of clouds. I have a family member who literally had delusions of all three of those things. He was extremely mentally ill and involuntarily committed to mental facilities numerous times over the decades. But if he had a delusion about groups of certain ethnicities then all of the sudden there is “no excuse” for it and it would be “absolutely nothing to do with his mental illness?” WRONG.
Just absolutely horrifying and able-ist thinking. I’m not talking about Kanye here specifically because who really knows what is up with him. But mentally ill people absolutely have bigoted delusions and conspiracy beliefs arise in the exact same way they develop conspiracy beliefs that mice and rats are fake robots sent by the FBI to spy on them with listening devices.
Lola- I totally agree! I think often times they mistake people saying “someone experiencing mania is saying crazy things” as “they have bipolar disorder therefor they are racist”
Nobody thinks people with bipolar disorder (or whatever other mental illness) are racist because they have that disorder. They are simply acknowledging the fact that someone who is manic and not in touch with reality is not in control of their thoughts.
I think those of us with first hand experience understand the difference
When people are constantly harming others, I don’t feel one bit of sympathy for their mental illnesses.
Sorry, not sorry.
He’s been hateful for a very long time, too bad his attacks against Black people and, in particular Black women weren’t seen worthy of serious sanction and consequences.
There is no denying the fact that Kayne is extremely mentally unwell AND a racist, misogynist, hateful POS; the two are not mutually exclusive. Yet to make matters worse, alt-right assholes like Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro, and Candace Owens are praising his spectacle of wearing the “White Lives Matter” shirt (with Owens wearing the same). Kayne gave an interview to Carlson that was beyond delusional, but that doesn’t stop them from continuing to give him a platform for his hateful vitriol – then praising him for speaking his truth, he’s so brave.
GTFOH 🙄
Enabling his abhorrent behavior is sick. He needs serious help and without intervention, this won’t end well.
Agreed, and it’s just awful that someone like this is able to have a school.
As a side note, when the new Real Housewife Lizzy Savetsky (who is jewish) spoke out immediately about Kanye, she got the most vile, disgusting anti-Semitic messages. She posted them. As a Jewish woman, and mother, frankly, that was even more disheartening.
“Celebrities speaking out” aka 2 Jewish celebrities. The response to this has been depressingly quiet.
Yup. Will Ben Shapiro say anything? Let’s place our bets now LMAO
This!!
Why hasn’t this man been placed in a conservatorship yet? Britney was placed in one for years for much, much less. This man has called for violence against Pete Davidson, spews antisemitism which his minions im sure will act upon one day (hopefully not) and is a danger to his kids, ex wife, and himself. This is still a man’s world. If Kanye was a woman..he would be in one already. He needs to be forcibly medicated. Sorry not sorry. I have no sympathy for him.
Who is going to put him under a conservatorship?
The catalyst for Britney being put under a conservatorship is when she lock herself and her son in a bathroom and police were called. Amanda Bynes was put under a conservatorship Only after she tried to set her self and dog of fire. That is when both families went into action.
It seem that because Kanye is only verbally abusing and threatening people no action can be taken. Sadly he has to put his or someone else well-being at risk for action take place.
if their was someone to do so.
Depending on the state, threats and verbal abuse is just as serious as physical violence. Let’s be real here. If Kanye was a woman doing this, they would already be locked up. He’s rich, and a man. Nobody will intervene until he hurts himself or others.
From what I recall previously, Kim said a few years ago they couldn’t do anything.
But also, rich man in power.
Does Kanye have Bipolar, or Borderline Personality Disorder? The acronym for both is the same, so that often leads to a great deal of confusion. I thought he had Borderline, but I could have been wrong.
The worst, stupidest part of all of this though, is the fact that Elon Musk (who is Jewish) welcomed Kanye back onto Twitter, only for Kanye to tweet this sh-t. I know Elon Musk doesn’t give two sh-ts abt it, but he is the exact sort of person Kanye was targeting with this rhetoric. I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts that Elon Musk genuinely thinks that the sort of stuff Kanye says won’t affect him or w/e, but that’s the grave danger, always, in letting that sort of behaviour go unchallenged…which is exactly what Elon Musk also plans to do if he ever acquires Twitter, bc “free speech” or w/e. That’s a real leopards ate my face sort of moment if there ever was one.
As far as I know, bipolar and borderline can be what they call “comorbidities” and they can also be mistaken for each other.
@ciotogista — While there could very well be a comorbidity with BPD and Bipolar Disorders, BPD is a separate condition that centers on the inability to manage emotions effectively. It presents as arrested emotional development and a resulting lack of age-appropriate behaviour. Symptoms can include difficulty in regulating feelings and reactions, poor impulse control, immature and sometimes reckless behavior, and troubled primary relationships. Because they feel emotions much more strongly than non-BPDs, they have a hard time discerning minor issues from major ones. One therapist stated “Giving love and support to a borderline is like trying to fill a well with a huge crack at the bottom; they simply cannot hold it and require constant admiration to mitigate their feelings of insecurity.” The cornerstone of BPD is an uncontrollable fear of abandonment or rejection which drives their erratic emotional behaviour. While borderlines can go through several emotional ups and downs in a matter of hours, bipolar disorder causes people to dive into a manic state for months at a time, only to crash into a lengthy depressive one. I think Kanye is a walking compendium of several disorders, one being schizotypal personality disorder. People with it are often thought of as having an *eccentric* personality. They might take magical thinking, superstitions, or paranoid thoughts very seriously, avoiding or insulting people they irrationally hate or mistrust. They also might dress strangely or ramble incoherently. These behaviors can make it difficult for them to form or maintain close relationships.
My mother and sister both suffered from a combination of BPD and NPD so growing up in my household was like walking through a field of landmines. You never knew when one or the other was going to blow. It took a lot of studying and some therapy to get me past the damage they inflicted, and I only hope his kids are being protected from his dangerous behaviour.
Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and Bipolar Affective Disorder (the correct acronym is BPAD, although often written in error as BPD) are two very distinct and separate psychiatric issues. Occasionally BPD-type behavior can mimic the instability of BPAD or vice versa, but a good psychiatrist can tell them apart.
Speaking VERY generally, Borderline is a disorder of personality organization that can make the person misconstrue/misinterpret the dynamics of interpersonal relationships. Intensive psychotherapy is the best treatment. Bipolar disorder is a disorder of brain chemistry that causes dramatic, sudden, and persistent mood swings that in the worst cases can veer into paranoia and psychosis. Medication is the best (some would say only) treatment.
What Kanye is exhibiting right now, as described in this article, is most consistent with a severe manic episode. Maybe he’s a little borderline/narcissistic during the times he’s not having a bipolar episode too, one can be both. But this is definitely not that.
(Sorry for replying to myself.) As to the question of why he hasn’t received involuntary treatment (via conservatorship or otherwise,) your guess is as good as mine. In most cases the behavior described in the article (not sleeping, ranting nonsensically, etc.) would be enough that somebody would step in, at least to hospitalize him briefly. Maybe nobody around him feels empowered to do that, maybe he’s alienated enough people that nobody cares. Regardless, if nobody around him will call 911, then he’d have to be out in the streets making threats to the public for the authorities to step in. (Social media doesn’t count for that, unfortunately, although it could be used in a future conservatorship hearing as evidence of him clearly acting against his best interest.) It also depends on the state. He’s got property in at least two states (maybe more?) and I don’t know where he’s spending his time.
Elon Musk isn’t Jewish…Elon is a Hebrew name, and maybe somewhere down the line he has a Jewish ancestor? But no not Jewish. The thought he is speaks to the Anti Semitism Kanye believes in…
I stand corrected, wow! Thank you so much for letting me know about this. I have no idea why I thought he was Jewish, I could swear someone, somewhere, said he was, and it was probably bc they saw his name and thought it was Jewish. Which…says so much abt just how entrenched antisemitism is in this world, I feel.
To paraphrase one of the best comments I’ve seen about these situations, “Are we going to place him under a conservatorship now or is that just for women?”
I think we all know the answer to this one: JUST FOR WOMEN who don’t have the power to stop it.
His comments were so horrific. They seemed intended to stoke violence. I’m not surprised that this community became his focus after aligning himself with the extreme right wing.
Attacking Jewish people? Usually that will get you cancelled real quick bc they rightfully won’t tolerate racism. Kanye’s slide into full white supremacy is now complete. So how many chances will this man get?
We need to stop assuming horrible people have mental illnesses and attributing terrible behavior/beliefs to mental illness. Its diminishing and disrespectful to those that do.
I dont think this is a result of mental illness or his mother’s death though, just Kanye being Kanye. I just think he’s an awful and evil person whose terrible beliefs and behavior are exacerbated by an over inflated ego, extreme wealth and privilege, who now has an even larger platform to act out on. That interview with TC was the real Kanye.
I was done with him when he was called himself Yeezus and his subsequent actions and esp saying slavery is a choice just confirmed my opinions of him. I hope other communities, and especially the Black community, are finally done with him and will stop excusing and justifying his antics. That would be the only thing to wake him up.
He showed up to North’s basketball game with a White Lives Matter t-shirt on. How horrifying for his daughter. I don’t know what it will take to get this man cancelled. Seems like he’s just getting richer and richer. I remember when Nick Cannon said some horrible anti-semitic sh*t years ago. His career is doing better than ever now. I don’t understand.
He looked so unwell in the fox news interview. It was unsettling to see and to watch them completely take advantage of him too.
The messages from Pdiddy were sad to read. Like you can tell he is genuinely worried about his friend Ye and trying to help.
That being said I do completely agree that being bipolar is not an excuse for his behavior.
Unfortunately I have to forcefully push back on the notion that mental illness doesn’t “make” people have delusions that are bigoted about certain groups of people. It 10,000% can and does do so. Anyone who thinks otherwise needs to spend a decent amount of time around individuals with unmedicated schizophrenia.
I grew up with a family member who developed schizophrenia in his early 20’s, before I was born, let’s call him David. He was an average young man for the era. My family despite being POC and having some black members is also full of anti-black racism. David was no exception. However, these are the things he started to have delusions about:
– He believed that our family members were recording him using recorders hidden in nick-nacks.
– He believed that he had been abducted by aliens who were working together with the FBI, and that the FBI was after him so they could experiment on him.
– Whenever local cops rolled by he believed they were part of this alien/FBI plan so he ran and hid from them.
– He believed that his mother (an extremely old-fashioned conservative staunch Catholic matriarch) was going around telling strangers that he was a drag queen.
– He believed that the neighbors were controlling his thoughts and implanting his thoughts in him using radio waves.
– He believed that the girl who was his fiancee before he got sick, was actually a lizard in human skin form.
– And yes, he believed that the local black community was planning to come to the main street of our neighborhood and hold a riot.
He was already racist but that was not why he was having delusions that the black community would hold a riot. He was having those delusions the same way he had delusions about his fiancee, his mother, the neighbors, the local cops, the FBI, and our entire family including myself. He was just afraid of everyone and everything and his brain cooked up extreme fears about everyone in the world. There’s a reason the rate at which schizophrenic individuals are able to end their own lives is is between 4% and 13%. Just sheer terror of everything all the time.
Kanye does not have schizophrenia. I think most people are aware that unmedicated schizophrenics can be totally delusional.
MaryContrary, as far as I am aware, the public has never gotten a full accounting of Kanye West’s mental health diagnoses. None of us are in a position to say what mental illnesses if any he has, or doesn’t have. He is clearly delusional. There are lots of illnesses that cause delusions. None of us has the standing to say which one (or which ones) it is here.
And not to diagnose Kanye, but as the family member of someone schizophrenic, and the close friend to three bipolar people, Kanye’s statements, beliefs, behavior, appearance, and demeanor, runs way closer to schizophrenia than it does to bipolar for me. I know that many loved ones of those with schizophrenia are finding this all very familiar. Again, none of us know what he has actually been diagnosed with.
Dear Lola, my God, that sounds incredibly difficult. My thoughts are with you–it sounds as if your family member has already passed on, but even writing down those facts must have been really hard.