Translator: Theresa Ranft Reviewer: David DeRuwe
I've been feeling a little nostalgic lately.
These past few days, I've been reminiscing about my time as an intern,
how different the pace was then.
I remember I would arrive at the office, press the button on the computer,
and it would take a while to turn on.
And I still had to connect to the internet.
I worked in the communications department and dealt with large image files,
and every time I had to save an image,
I'd get up and get a cup of coffee or chat to people,
because it took so long.
Then, suddenly, everything changed.
The world became fast-paced, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous.
The demands increased,
and with them, the need to do things faster and faster.
And I tried to keep up with the pace.
The only thing I didn't expect was I would be forced to take a pause,
against my will.
I was in a rising career abroad
when I was caught off-guard by an unexpected psychiatric diagnosis.
In March of 2005,
I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder with psychotic features.
At first, the situation didn't look good; the outlook even less.
I even had a doctor
who said that I should retire and go on disability.
Imagine this: I was in my early 30s with so much life ahead of me
when my life came to a sudden halt.
In the case of bipolar disorder,
I have two distinctive behavior states:
one is depression, and the other is euphoria,
which was previously called mania.
The euphoric phase was an energy unlike anything I'd ever experienced.
I remember going to the office
and working late into the night, only to come home and continue working
as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
That was until my boss said to me, "Dyene, slow down,
the other departments can't keep up with your demands."
Then I started to get worse, and I couldn't see things properly.
It was like I had stuck my face out the window of a fast-moving car,
and I couldn't distinguish the objects properly.
I once looked at the fridge and saw moving shapes and colors.
I still occasionally look at the fridge to make sure it's still in its place.
At times, it affected my hearing too.
I'd hear things that no one else could hear,
like a basketball bouncing incessantly next to me.
My biggest fear at that time was that I would gradually go crazy,
until I was no longer myself at all.
And after all this euphoric energy,
I would fall into an overwhelming depression.
That phase was very difficult. I felt like an invalid.
I would cry all day for no apparent reason.
I remember once we threw a birthday party for my husband,
and I couldn't get out of bed.
I remember that I prayed, begged, and bargained,
but my body wouldn't respond.
That was very strange
because I have always been an extremely sociable person,
and acting that way was very unlike me.
At times like this, I'd feel really guilty
for not being able to do things so easily.
And along with the guilt,
there was shame, sadness, and tremendous agony.
And that agony continued to escalate
until I wanted to sleep and never wake up again.
I even started planning my "disappearance" -
if you know what I mean.
When I told this to my therapist,
she said, "Dyene, this is very dangerous.
You're having suicidal thoughts."
And that word I know well
because my grandmother committed suicide at the age of 56.
She had also suffered from bipolar disorder.
So my therapist suggested that I go to a psychiatric hospital.
The term "psychiatric hospital" is enough to scare anyone.
But what scares me the most
is the stigma, the prejudice,
because that's what prevents people from seeking appropriate treatment.
I went to the hospital
where I had people assessing me 24 hours a day:
professionals, competent doctors.
This really helped my recovery.
When I left the hospital, I think what helped me the most
was being able to count on the support and unconditional love of my family.
I remember once, at the hospital, I told my husband,
"Darling, if you want to divorce me, I'll understand.
I have nothing to offer you right now."
And he said to me, "You're crazy if you think I'll divorce you!"
To which I replied,
"Well, the fact that I'm crazy has been proven -
we're in a psychiatric hospital!"
And as time passed, my desire to improve continued,
and I started to visualize my recovery,
which was nothing more than an optimistic view
of who I wanted to be.
I imagined myself studying, working, doing the things I've always enjoyed.
And I remember it was January of 2007
that I decided to make a New Year's resolution.
I wrote down on paper that I would make the impossible possible -
I would commit myself to overcoming this disorder.
At that time, I had started reading all of the books on bipolar disorder.
I read all the biographies.
And what I learned during that time is that the pauses aren't permanent.
In fact, pauses are an excellent opportunity
to discover a reservoir of potential that we don't even know we have.
And in some ways,
I think we're all experiencing an imposed pause because of COVID-19.
It's a very painful time.
But I think if we pay attention,
we'll be able to draw very rich lessons from it
in this very difficult moment.
Deep down, everything starts from within us.
It's not external factors that generate stress
but how we deal with these external factors.
I pay a lot of attention to my stress
because it can be a trigger for my bipolar symptoms.
And depression and bipolar disorder are very serious illnesses.
According to WHO,
depression is the biggest cause of disability in the world,
and Oxford researchers have found
that life expectancy is 9 to 20 years shorter
for those with bipolar disorder.
And I always ask myself, "How I can stay out of those statistics?"
The first thing is knowing that I'm not cured but stabilized.
This makes adherence to my treatment even greater.
And I also think it has a lot to do with personal responsibility,
which is my own commitment to my mental health
in adopting long-term healthy habits.
It may seem strange for someone who has a mental disorder
to come here and talk to you about balance and healthy living,
but it makes all the sense in the world.
Maintaining my mental health is not an option for me -
it's a matter of life and death.
If I don't take care of myself,
my probability of committing suicide increases exponentially.
That's why I came here today
to share the five steps I take to complement my treatment.
I'll give you an example.
Remember I said that when I was euphoric my thoughts were extremely fast?
This happened a lot.
I think that our habit of staying constantly busy
is an addictive adrenaline rush.
Then, at the end of the day, we think to ourselves,
"Wow, I've worked so hard,
but I feel like I've accomplished nothing."
Stanford researchers found that, when we multitask,
our efficiency and productivity drop.
Our brain is a lot like a computer.
You know when you leave all the tabs open on a computer?
Our brains are the same.
And deep down, our conscious attention
is one of the most precious resources we have.
Back in 2007,
when I promised myself I would take care of my mental health,
the first thing I looked into was meditation.
And then I tried it.
I was living in Houston then,
and I went to a Buddhist temple to learn how to meditate.
I confess that I was a real disaster.
You know that concept of clearing the mind,
focusing on breathing, and not thinking about anything?
That wasn't for me.
Then I went to the monk and said,
"Look, I understand the importance of meditation,
but I don't think I have the cognitive capacity for it."
And he said to me, with all the tranquility
that only a monk could possess,
"Dyene, meditation isn't something we do -
it's something we practice."
And he had a point. So I decided to practice.
To this day, I've noticed that when I don't meditate,
I don't sleep so well,
my ability to focus and concentrate decreases,
and my anxiety increases.
And this lack of focus and clarity that I had
improved with meditation, but they weren't my only symptoms.
Another very evident symptom I had was my need for isolation.
I think this is understandable.
People who have depression know it's an anguish,
a desperation to get away from others.
You don't want anyone to see you in that state.
So you distance yourself.
However, the more difficult our lives get, the more we need each other.
I once heard that monsters exist in the dark,
but when you turn on the light, you can see they don't exist.
Sometimes you don't have the will to get up and turn on the switch.
And that's when you need a helping hand.
When I decided I was going to get better, I started investing in my relationships -
that was my second step.
So I set up a group of family and friends
and even attended several support groups,
which was very important for me.
And today I see that isolation reigns.
We have so much technology to bring us together,
but it's increasingly difficult for us to form genuine, lasting relationships.
And perhaps it's even more difficult for us to coexist with people
who think differently from us.
And what we should strive to do
is build more and more inclusive, diverse relationships
because the more inclusive and diverse we are,
the greater the possibility for us to find solutions
to the most complex problems that humanity offers.
It'll be collaboration mediated by technology
that will allow us to reach the highest innovation rates.
And this technology comes with some challenges -
for me at least.
One of them is digital overload,
which is understandable considering we're in front of screens all day -
computer screens, televisions, and cell phones.
University of Chicago intellectuals
have even said
that social media is more addictive than alcohol and cigarettes.
So to help me balance out this digital overload,
I prioritized sleep in my life.
If when I was depressed I'd sleep 18 hours a day.
and when I was euphoric I wouldn't sleep at all -
today, I know that seven to eight hours is my ideal.
Restorative sleep enhances our ability to learn and memorize
and also decreases the risks
of developing some types of cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases.
I remember when I was younger,
I used to think it was great to pull all-nighters working.
Today, I know how harmful this was to my health.
Improving my sleeping habits was the third thing I did
to improve my mental health.
The fourth was exercise.
I always used lack of time as an excuse,
until a friend of mine said, "Dyene, a day has 1440 minutes.
If you can't find 30 to exercise, then you're doing something wrong."
And he was right.
So I started to see exercise as a medical prescription,
as something that would help me fight my comorbidities.
And when I started to see exercise that way,
it became much easier to overcome procrastination and get off the couch.
I think procrastination is something we're all somewhat familiar with.
Sometimes it's so difficult to get our dreams off the ground
because we're so afraid of making mistakes.
I once heard
that somewhere in the world there's the Museum of Procrastination.
There, you can find that incredible book that was never written,
that brilliant canvas that was never painted,
and that brilliant innovation that was never patented.
We have to remember something: life is very different from school.
At school, first we have the lesson -
first we have the lesson and then we have the test.
In life, first we have the test, and then we have the lesson.
And to counteract this procrastination imposed by my illness,
I needed a lot of discipline
to do the four steps I told you about today:
improve my sleep, exercise, meditate,
and seek healthy relationships.
And it was with this discipline that I kept moving forward.
I had to pause; I even took a step back.
But I continued.
Today, I can say that bipolar disorder has transformed me.
I don't complain about my job
because I know what it's like to be incapacitated.
I know that unforeseen events happen to anyone
and that the sense of control I thought I had
was a mere illusion.
I also recognize the privileges I had -
one of which was access to quality healthcare.
And my most sincere wish
is that everyone who suffers from a mental disorder
can have accessibility to the same opportunities I had.
Today, I do what I like doing.
I'm a marketing global director
at an intelligence and information company,
and I've told my story through a book called "Vencendo a Mente."
I deliberately used a gerund in the title, "Conquering the Mind" in English,
because the work never ends.
Telling my story so openly was a real challenge.
I was very afraid of being ridiculed,
stigmatized, or even excluded.
But that didn't happen.
I was treated with a great deal of kindness.
When the time came for the book release, I had to tell my boss,
and I thought I was going to get fired,
or that my career would end at that moment.
And he surprised me when he said,
"Dyene, courage, authenticity, and vulnerability
are characteristics of true leaders."
Hearing that was very important for me to move forward.
For a while, I had considered publishing the book anonymously,
but then I would miss an excellent opportunity
to show people that it's possible to live with a mental disorder,
to live a full life,
and also to reinforce the importance of the treatment that makes this possible.
In the end, it was through healthy habits, self-awareness, and discipline
that I managed to turn the tables and resume my momentum -
not forgetting the importance of pausing, whether it be deliberate or not.
It was through pausing
that I was able to connect with who I really was
and tell own my story.
A wise man once said, "Change, but start slowly
because direction is more important than speed."
So start where you are,
go at your own pace,
and never give up until you find your point of equilibrium.
Thank you.
(Applause)