Hi. I’m Aubrey Blanche. And I’m Bipolar.

In 2021, I found out that I was Bipolar. I've mentioned this a few times on Twitter here and there - but I want to come out and talk about it openly. It's deeply personal to me, but it's essential to start having these conversations. 

I had a manic episode back in February. I had a psychotic break. I was coming in and out of being lucid while managing a vast amount of pressure. I kept coming back and feeling okay; when I was lucid, I was lucky enough to be able to identify that I needed help and support. I ended up going into the psychiatric ward of a hospital for four days, started a course of medication, and did everything I needed to do. It was hard. It was confronting. And it asked me to slow down and examine how I live my life. I'll be honest; the process of finding out I was bipolar was terrifying. 

I was terrified that I would lose my job and become unstable, facing so much uncertainty. I was asking myself, would psychotic breaks just become a part of my life? Would I be able to go back to the job, the career and the mission that I love? It turns out that the answer to that question was an emphatical yes. With medication, with other support, with my networks, and with a mindful eye on self-care - I could go back to my life. I'm fortunate. But I'm also now incredibly driven.

I'm already someone who professionally deals with mental health as a constant. So much of my job requires an emotional and mental capacity to help people. I already have to see and work with PTSD and various other traumas. Once I put those pieces together for myself, I was no longer scared about being bipolar; I was consumed by a new mission to support other people going through the same.

I have all of the pieces that I need to manage this condition. I'm going to be okay. And I want to make sure anyone else facing a mental health condition is too.

I believe that we are conditioned to pretend that we're fine. When people ask, "how are you?" it never feels like an earnest question. There's a script. It's a part of the social performance; it's not a question. I'm trying now to be more honest, whether that's with I'm feeling affected by global events, by the challenges of my job, by social injustices. I'm trying to bring my whole self into focus and answer that question with a deep sense of honesty. 

We need to tell people that we are challenged by or working through our mental health conditions without feeling as though the world's going to end. If you tell someone you went to the hospital because you broke your leg, no one is going to think any less of your competency or your value. If we can treat mental health in the same way, we'll reach a level of equality that could be a game-changer for so many people.

When I came back to work after my hospitalization, people asked where I had gone all of a sudden and why I had stepped back for a couple of weeks. I could have taken any excuse, but my response was to openly say, “Well, you know, I'm bipolar, and I have been hospitalized.” And, it turns out that people are entirely fucking fine when you say something like that. It was a perfect learning moment to recognize that I can speak the truth without having everyone judge me or walk away from me, which is a privilege I don’t take for granted. 

Working in tech companies, operating in the kinds of places that we do, there is an awful lot of pressure. I think that can exacerbate issues with our mental and emotional health.

I'm a hyper-growth executive. I have spent my career in hyper-growth companies, from Atlassian to Culture Amp. I think it's easy to tell yourself a story that if you take a little bit of time out for yourself, everything's going to come crashing down. And that's not true, even in elite, scaling, hyper-competitive startups. 

The world will not end if you take time for yourself, and in fact, your world will be much better; because I can't tell you how many people I see flame out and burn out because of the same types of behaviors I've fallen into at times: overwork, lack of transparency and communication around what I need, and a lack of trust in coworkers and management to support me when I needed it. 

The experience has changed the ways I will approach my role in Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI); having been through something where you've been so vulnerable and being supported has given me a new insight into the support and care I need to provide to the people around me.