Trigger Warning: This story has mentions of mental illness, suicidal thoughts, and emotional trauma.

“Death may be comforting, but the courage lies in living and choosing life over anything else.”

When Manvi Mehta says these words, her voice doesn’t waver. It holds the weight of a 16-year-long struggle with Bipolar Affective Disorder (BPAD), yet it rings with a quiet strength. Today, at 32, Manvi is a published poet, a professor, a mental health advocate — a woman who has walked through darkness and emerged bearing light, not just for herself, but for others.

But her journey, like many, began in silence and confusion.

When the brightest student couldn’t add two numbers

It was 5th September — ironically, Teachers’ Day — when Manvi first realised something was wrong. Then a top-performing student in Noida, she had just scored 94 percent in her board exams, topping in mathematics. But that morning, she couldn’t solve even a basic equation.

“I remember crying before school,” she recalls. “Maths had always been my favourite subject, but suddenly I just… couldn’t. I didn’t recognise myself. I was withdrawing from everything I loved.”

Her family cycled through every explanation — stress, nazar, upar ki hawa (misfortune believed to be caused by evil eye). But the change in their daughter was too stark, too relentless. It was her grandmother who finally said the unspeakable: “Let’s go see a doctor.”

That decision changed everything.

The diagnosis that unravelled and clarified

Doctors initially suspected schizoaffective disorder. But after more tests and deeper observation, the final diagnosis emerged: Bipolar Affective Disorder.

For many families, a diagnosis brings clarity. For Manvi, it brought rupture.

“I didn’t know what bipolar meant,” she says. “All I knew was that it sounded… final. Scary. Like something that would follow me forever.”

Dr Vishal Chhabra, Head of Mental Health at Fortis Hospital Shalimar Bagh, explains, “When someone hears they have BPAD, their sense of self cracks open. You don’t just question your future — you question your past. Every mood, every decision starts to feel suspect.”

BPAD isn’t just mood swings. It’s a chronic disorder marked by extreme shifts in mood, energy, and functioning — oscillating between depressive lows and manic highs. It began to reshape every part of Manvi’s reality.

“When I’m depressed, it’s not sadness. It’s numbness. A fog. You lose all desire to live. You become hollow. And then, without warning, you swing to mania.”