“Depressed freak.” “She’s lost it.” “Mental case.” “When are you going back to IMH?” “Alien.”

These are just some of the labels I heard in reference to myself, either directly or indirectly, from relatives, schoolmates and former colleagues during my mental health struggles.

Nine years ago, I was diagnosed with bipolar mood disorder. I talked to the television. I thought my feet had powers to influence global events. I went from happy to sad to mad in a blink of an eye. There was once when I saw a human stick figure being drawn on a whiteboard and burst into tears.

I was ill for about a year before a family friend recognised the symptoms. And she was only able to do so because her brother had gone through a similar experience. Many people around me just thought I was behaving badly.

For a long time, I believed I was an evil person for all the things I did while I was ill. I despised myself; I was suicidal. I felt like Mike Tyson with an ugly tattoo on my face — labelled for life.

Thank God I was wrong.

From an unemployed, broken school dropout, I have become a Sub-Editor at a national paper, with a degree in hand. Mental illness may be a roadblock to jobs, as a TODAY report on Feb 13 found, but it is certainly not the end of the road.

Often, it is the labels we give ourselves that have more power than the ones people hurl at us. The mean ones only hurt us if we let them stick.

TAKE THE MEDS, WORK IT OUT

I believe in God but I also believe in evolution — that we must adapt or die.

Greylag geese fly south in winter. Giant clams live symbiotically with the algae within them, recycling each other’s waste and supplying the partner with nutrients. Nature teaches us that effort is necessary to survive.

Having a mental illness is not our fault, but using it as an excuse to give up on a good and happy life is. People may write us off but the universe rewards those who keep trying.

I will be honest. I fought the medication. I threw the meds in the dustbin, outside my window, in my mouth — before spitting it out later. I did not believe all the mumbo jumbo about my needing them. And every time I stopped taking the pills, I would have a terrible relapse. I would upset my family and friends. I would lose a job. I would sink into despair.

Finally, I realised I needed them — at least for the time being.

Minds, like arms, can get fractured. I see the tablets as my cast, a protective device to help me heal until I need it no more.

I do not believe in over-medicating, however. Not everything can be solved with a pill. Some so-called symptoms of mental illness are really caused by a lack of wisdom, discipline and, quite simply, love.

DAMNED IF THEY DO/DON’T

Unfortunately, some people, some good people, just are not comfortable with people with mental illness. It freaks them out.

People with mental illness here have to deal with employers enquiring about their medical conditions during the hiring process. Resolving the resulting Catch-22 is tricky: They are damned if they do declare, as they are often shunned; and damned if they do not, as they risk termination when found out later. The stigma is still too real.

It is likely that employers here will take a more serious view of this form of discrimination against the mentally ill if the Government throws its weight behind fair employment legislation for this group.

After all, according to the Singapore Mental Health Study published in 2011, more than one in 10 people will suffer from a mental illness in their lifetimes. This seems like a significant portion of our workforce having to deliberate painfully over mental health declarations, no?

My good friend, who also had mental health struggles, put it well: “Labelling a personal emotional journey a ‘condition’ and carrying it as what our society sees as a stigma in almost every official document for the rest of one’s life, is tragic and unnecessary.”

I decided to be honest with my current employers and am grateful that my open-minded bosses at TODAY accepted me.

The point of fighting mental health stigma is not for the rest of the world to indulge us as we choose to linger in the abyss. The point, I believe, is for them to be kind as we try to be better.

I am all for greater awareness among employers and the public, but people with mental illness have a part to play too. Real victory happens when we take personal responsibility to prove wrong those who think ill of us.

I think about it as Zen and the art of sanity: We should adjust to people’s criticisms and doubts, but not care too much at the end of the day.