Kanye West Bipolar, Narcissism & Trauma? Transcript & Video

This is a transcript of the audio insights of Patrick Wanis, Human Behavior Expert PhD and Celebrity Life Coach about Kanye West. This transcript has been slightly edited and includes links to other articles and sources. You can listen to the full audio of Kanye West here. 

This is Patrick Wanis Human Behavior Expert PhD and Celebrity Life Coach.

Is there more than exhaustion going on with Kanye West?

It was initially reported that Kanye West was put in a psychiatric hold in California that’s known as the 5150. And that usually occurs when it’s believed that someone is either a danger to themselves or a danger to other people. So apparently there was some sort of incident at the house of the trainer of Kanye West, and the doctor is the one that suggested or called the authorities and requested that he be put on a psychiatric hold of 5150. So it usually has to be a doctor or some other law enforcement officer that would actually initiate or instigate the 5150 hold. It is also believed to have been reported by the same doctor that Kanye West was experiencing some sort of psychosis. And the phrases were also referred to as “extreme exhaustion and sleep deprivation.”

So we have to look into it and say, “Is there more than exhaustion going on with Kanye West?”

Yes there is.

First thing is that if someone is undergoing sleep deprivation: how did they get to that point?

Obviously, someone who is deprived of sleep will experience exhaustion.

But to undergo sleep deprivation means that someone has gone for a long period usually more than 24 hours without sleeping then it is going to lead to exhaustion. For a long time it’s been known that Kanye West will sometimes stay up for more than 48 hours whether he is writing or performing or creating music. So already we’ve seen there is a pattern with him. And if there is sleep deprivation to the extent that Kanye West is a danger to himself or a danger to someone else then we recognize that there is a serious reason for there to be sleep deprivation and that usually is connected to a mental health issue; if someone goes for long periods of time where they are unable to sleep, or they are choosing not to sleep then there is a much more serious underlying issue.

Now the term is also being used regarding Kanye’s current state as a “nervous breakdown.” In other words they’re saying he is suffering from a nervous breakdown. Is this a catch old term for stress or something more?

Nervous breakdown is a very old term. It’s not a term which is used in the mental health field nor is it a medical condition.

Nervous breakdown when we speak about it as an everyday word refers to experiencing extreme stress, extreme anxiety, depression, and ultimately physical mental and emotional stress that therefore prevent someone from being able to function.

So if we say someone is having a nervous breakdown, what’s really happening is that they can’t function due to mental emotional and physical stress.

So again it’s not a term that we use today, but it’s a term that the average person will use and I think the average person understands what it usually means that this person who has had a nervous breakdown has been overwhelmed by life. They’ve undergone extreme stress, mental emotional and physical stress, and they simply can’t function.

Inability to function refers to physical, mental and emotional signs and symptoms – poor cognitive functioning such as inability to think clearly, make decisions or remember certain things; poor motor skills; vision problems; anxiety, fear or bouts of uncontrollable crying; lack of appetite; insomnia; delusions, hallucinationsl extreme fatigue or opposite – extreme excitement

So we then ask the question: does Kanye West have actual mental health issues?

Well, if we look at his past (and I’ve been writing about Kanye West for many years going back to 2007), around 2007 I began my annual list of the Top 10 Celebrity Meltdowns and Kanye West has been in about 5 years of those – 2008, 2009, 2013, 2014, 2015.

2008

And if you look at those, you’ll see his behaviour has often been erratic: he’s been violent or he’s had extreme reactions sometimes violent reactions to things going on. You’ll recall there were incidents where he got up on stage during, the VMA awards and said Taylor Swift doesn’t deserve the award. In 2009, Taylor Swift was just awarded the VMA for Best Female Video for “You Belong With Me” — beating out Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies.” As Swift took the stage to give her acceptance speech, Kanye cried out, “Yo Taylor, I’m really happy for you, I’ll let you finish, but Beyoncé has one of the best videos of all time. One of the best videos of all time!”

2009

Then there was another time when he got into some sort of violent response with the paparazzi; so you’ll see that this has been an ongoing situation where you can only look at this in two ways where you can say he is screaming out for attention and therefore he is deliberately doing things to get attention, to get him to stand out, to get people to notice him or he simply can’t control himself emotionally. And if we look a bit deeper, we’ll see that this situation of exhaustion or sleep deprivation are 2 very clear symptoms or signs of the mental health disorder known as bipolar.

2013

Now let me explain what bipolar is: back in the 1980s before the term bipolar was coined, there was a mental disorder simply known as manic depression; manic depression meant that a person would become manic for a long period of time sometimes for seven days – that means they would go full steam ahead for seven days often without sleeping – they’ll be thinking fast, acting fast, talking fast, easily distracted and engage all of their energy sometimes being fully awake for many days at a time for seven days.

After that manic stage they would fall into a depressed state.

Now 1st thing is anyone who will stay up for many days without sleep is going to fall into some deep state of depression simply because of sleep deprivation and the state of exhaustion. So usually manic depression means a person becomes manic up to 5-7 days then they’ll fall into depressed state for about 2 weeks. In the manic state they’ll engage in erratic, uncontrollable and even anti-social behavior as exemplified by the thing you have seen done by Kanye not only years ago but also recently when he engaged in a 10 minute rant, a 10 minute tirade during his concert when he suddenly starts talking about politics, talking about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and Jay Z and Mark Zuckerberg and he is talking about conspiracy theories and saying ‘I’m the one who is going to tell you the truth and we have to change and feelings count etc.’

And you recognize that this is not behavior that would be expressed by an artist; its behavior that’s being demonstrated or expressed by someone whose lost control of themselves.

His behavior has been like this for a very long time. And if we look at what would be the signs of a mental health disorder such as bipolar, we would say he fits into that because he definitely goes into periods of mania and then he goes into periods of deep, dark depression.

When we talk about mania it needs to be also said that when a person is in this manic state it’s not just about having lot of energy and increased activity levels and being jumpy or wild or having trouble sleeping or talking fast about a lot of different things or being agitated or irritable or touchy; it’s much more than that.

It’s when they start to engage in what’s known as psychosis, and psychosis is psychotic symptoms, hallucinations, delusions where someone starts imagining they’re someone that they’re not – they start talking about it – so a person who isn’t famous might say ‘I’m famous and I’m rich and I have supernatural powers. ‘

Well that’s what has been happening with Kanye West for many, many years where he talks about himself as if he does come from another planet, as if he is supernatural to the extent that now according to other sources they talk about him having some sort of spiritual conflict some sort of spiritual internal struggle.

Now I don’t know if he actually did say that to someone; however, if he did say that to someone then you recognize that this would be an example of hallucination or delusion.

It’s interesting to know that the report about him being taken away on a 5150 hold included him reportedly having psychotic symptoms and him having hallucinations.

So again, if a person is hallucinating and being sleep deprived, then the two are connected.

If you are sleep deprived, then you will have cognitive impairment, cognitive dis-functioning. You will start to suffer from hallucinations and possibly delusions. Again these two as well as the sleep deprivation and hallucinations & delusions are also a part of bipolar mental disorder.

2014
https://www.patrickwanis.com/top-10-celebrity-meltdowns-of-2014-audio-interview/

So we’ve seen that Kanye West for a long-long time has been undergoing what we can describe as either psychotic episodes of hallucinations or delusions. Even in the way he refers to himself I think he said at one stage about him being selected by god and he is the voice and he is the connector and giving himself that sort of elevated importance or extreme significance automatically points out to delusion or hallucinations.

I avoid labelling people particularly someone I haven’t worked with.

Obviously if you look at what his other behavior tells you, then you are going to say that there’s 3 potential possibilities here…there is no doubt that he obviously has issues with narcissism.

Now there are two key forms of narcissism – there’s narcissism that we refer to NARCISSISTIC PERSONALITY DISORDER and that tends to come from someone who has deep deficits in self-esteem.

In other words, they’re engaging in this huge exaggerated form of narcissism because at a very deep level they actually don’t think that they’re that great. Therefore they are overcompensating. And NARCISSISTIC PERSONALITY DISORDER  also involves things such as promiscuity, the inability to form long and meaningful relationships & aggressive responses to criticism; obviously delusions of grandeur & importance and believing that you are extremely powerful & extremely significant and you have extraordinary power i.e. you’re going to change the world; that would be NARCISSISTIC PERSONALITY DISORDER.

We also have what I refer to as a sort of general or societal narcissism.

Societal narcissism is exemplified by the selfishness & ego of people who are only thinking of themselves and don’t care about anyone else. Therefore like the NARCISSISTIC PERSONALITY DISORDER, they don’t have compassion or sympathy for anyone else, they only think of themselves.

Societal narcissism has been created by society – meaning it’s the way we promote it, the way we promote TV reality stars, the way we promote celebrities, the way that we promote ourselves by selfies; the way that everything that we have can be customized. Your iPhone case can have 10 different colors and it can have 10 different styles, so therefore it’s not about individualism, it’s about the extreme form of everything that I do is extremely important.

The result doesn’t matter; it’s just that I’m here and therefore I am great.

So I believe that societal narcissism is being created by the culture; it’s the culture that keeps promoting each person to be viewed as so extremely important, regardless of having achieved anything or regardless of having contributed anything meaningful to society.

I would say in the case of Kanye West that his narcissism isn’t general societal narcissism; it’s something much deeper and it connects to his 3rd issue i.e. the death of his mother in 2007 – incidentally and quite interestingly, also in the month of November.  She died of heart disease and complications from surgery in Los Angeles in November 10, 2007 following a liposuction and breast reduction operation.

And he has spoken about her death – “If I had never moved to LA she’d be alive.” And he referred to it as – “It was like losing an arm and a leg and trying to walk through that.” He had a very close connection to her; I don’t know that much more about it other than saying it obviously had a great impact on him and he never has really been able to resolve or heal that pain and so therefore it’s going to come out in different ways.

So again there could be 3 potential core issues with Kanye West:

He displays examples of manic depressive behavior (I’m not labelling him as being bipolar I’m only saying he is definitely shown signs of being manic depressive or being bipolar);

Second, he has definitely shown us clear examples of extreme narcissism, believing that he is so much more important than everyone else and that what he says is gospel, that it’s true, and it’s so important.

And the third is unresolved pain, unresolved trauma relating to the death of his mother.

So how does being in the public eye exacerbate mental health issues if at all?

Yes it does.

Now we need to be clear about what do we mean by being in the public eye.

There are 2 forms of being in the public eye.

One is being a celebrity; the other is being famous.

And there is a distinction between the two because usually we talk about someone being famous as someone who has achieved something and a celebrity is someone who we know and we celebrate so much for no reason at all.

I have often referred to Paris Hilton in the past as being “famous for being famous.”

In other words, she has made no contribution to society, no meaningful contribution.

Fame is the result of glorification, usually bestowed for an accomplishment – i.e. President Bill Clinton, Mother Teresa. Celebrity is created and bestowed by the mass media regardless of any achievement and usually devoid of any achievement – i.e. Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian.

Thus, a celebrity and a famous person can be in the public eye for various reasons – for 2 different reasons. And being in the public eye (depending on to what extent and what level) will completely change your life. It will make you more who you are and it will have additional issues. I’ve written about this in the top 20 psychological issues of celebrities http://patrickwanis.com/top-20-psychological-issues-celebrities

And interestingly in issue no. 19 in my list, I have it listed as “I am unique no one understands me” and that’s usually the belief of the artist. So it depends on what is the role that you are playing in society, in the public eye, that makes you famous or makes you a celebrity. And therefore what are the expectations that society has on you. I will quickly list the top 20 issues because this is an example of how a famous person or celebrity is deeply impacted once they become famous. And remember, along with being a famous person or celebrity comes the ability to influence, along with that comes a sense of power, a sense of significance – being treated differently – being viewed differently, being praised and being deeply criticised and/or condemned.

So the 1st psychological issue for a celebrity is that “Everyone uses me” – Parasites and enablers – paranoia

In other words, a celebrity is surrounded by parasites and enablers, and it leads to paranoia. So that’s the first way that someone in the public eye is going to experience a shift in their day to day life because they’re going to be surrounded by people who want something from them constantly. So before I proceed with the other one, if there’s a mental-health issue it would be made worse and exacerbated by being in the public eye as well as by having expectations; if you are a socialite – you just show up – versus being a performer, musician, an artist, a singer, a dancer, a writer, an orator, etc.

Second psychological issue for a celebrity is  “I can have it all” – Temptation – parties, drugs & sex

Celebrities are always exposed to parties, drugs and sex. So if you already are having mental health issues and now you are engaging in illicit drugs, it’s going to make your condition worse.

Number 3 psychological issue for a celebrity – “I have no privacy” – Fear of the Paparazzi and the swarm of eyes always on you

There’s the fear of the paparazzi and the swarm of eyes always on you, and this is something that various celebrities have said to me – that they’re constantly being watched and sometimes they feel like they’re transparent and sometimes they feel like they’ve lost their soul.

So again depending on what the mental health issue is, if there’s already a sense of paranoia, having no privacy and knowing that wherever you’re going you are going to be watched is going to make it worse.

Number 4  psychological issue for a celebrity – “I can’t trust anyone” – The fake world of fame

So this is about the fake world of fame – recognizing that a lot of people around you are just saying ‘yes’ because they want to continue being around you. So they’re not going to tell you the truth and they probably are just out to use you, so you can’t trust them.

Number 5 psychological issue for a celebrity – “I have no friends; I am all alone” – Isolation & loneliness

The old expression ‘it’s very lonely at the top’ because you get there and you start to experience the isolation and loneliness because you also feel disconnected from other people. So again depending on what the mental health issue is, it could again exacerbate issues you already have with isolation or loneliness. If you’ve got some sense of abandonment and you fail to connect with people, being famous is going to make that worse.

Number 6 psychological issue for a celebrity – “I am just a commodity, owned by everyone else” – Objectification & branding

This is where a celebrity becomes objectified and is just branded and is used so that other people can make money off them.

Number 7 psychological issue for a celebrity – “No one knows the real me” – Split personality

This is the split personality, meaning ‘here is the person that I’m showing to the world but no one really knows who I am…they don’t know what I think and what I feel; they don’t know my inner struggle; they don’t know what pain I have, the self-doubt or any other issues that I have.’ So again this alone is going to create problems for someone having mental health issues because it shifts the dynamic of interpersonal relationships.

Number 8 psychological issue for a celebrity – “Don’t you know who I am? I deserve more” – Ego and entitlement

This is bad ego and you see this with every celebrity. I’ve talked about it before. Reese Witherspoon even used those same words when she and her husband were pulled over and I think her husband might have been drunk and she said to the law enforcement officer ‘don’t you know who I am?’ which, is to say ‘hey I’m so important…I’m entitled…you have no right to do anything to me…I’m above the law.’ And this is something that Kanye West has expressed many-many times, and again as I said, every celebrity has engaged in this at one point or another.

[Re: Reese Witherspoon, 2013 incident with police

The arresting officer stated:

“Mrs. Witherspoon asked, ‘Do you know my name?’ I answered, “No, I don’t need to know your name.” I then added, “right now.” Mrs. Witherspoon stated, ‘You’re about to find out who I am.’” 

“Mrs. Witherspoon also stated, ‘You are going to be on national news.’ I advised Mrs. Witherspoon that was fine.”

https://www.patrickwanis.com/celebrity-issues-8-ego-entitlement-untouchable/ ]

Number 9 psychological issue for a celebrity  – “Fame is my high” – Addiction to fame

So the other thing is that this can actually lead to addiction issues. If you have mental health issues and addiction, fame is going to make it worse because you could actually become addicted to the fame itself by just wanting to be more and more famous.

Number 10 psychological issue for a celebrity – “I want my name to live forever” – Building a legacy

This is about building a legacy, and again it’s connected to the addiction of fame where a person has this concept that ‘I should live forever and my name should live forever and my legacy and I should be forever remembered as amazing.’

Number 11 psychological issue for a celebrity – “You love me, you really, really love me” – Loss of intimacy & delusion

This is the loss of intimacy and delusion and you might recall the movie the mask with Jim Carey when he sort of makes a parody or satirizes a thing which was originally said by Sally Fields when she was really saying ‘you really love me’ – you actually recognize who I am; and this is where you see celebrities seeking the approval of others, specifically their peers and then the audience, then the fans.

Number 12 psychological issue for a celebrity “I can do whatever I want” – Lack of boundaries

There are various mental health issues where people don’t have boundaries. If someone grew up with emotional incest or they’re abused as a child; they won’t have boundaries. Enmeshment is when a parent’s identity becomes enmeshed with a child’s identity. Emotional incest is where there’s sexual tension between the parent and the child and the child is expected to fulfil the emotional needs of the adult even though there’s no sex; we call it emotional incest because the child is playing the role of a parent or an adult and it is as if they’re playing an adult relationship or a romantic relationship. And again this is the case for various celebrities who were abused as a child or experienced emotional incest or enmeshment and therefore they grow up having a lack of boundaries, and fame makes it worse.
2015
https://www.patrickwanis.com/the-top-10-celebrity-meltdowns-of-2015-audio-interview/

Number 13 psychological issue for a celebrity –  “It’s all about me” – Narcissism – The Fame Factor

This is the summation of the Fame Factor: Narcissism. This will be the one core issue which is obvious and evident with every celebrity where they suffer from the fame factor when they become famous, unless they extreme Emotional Intelligence they going to suffer from the fame factor i.e. it’s all about me.

Number 14 psychological issue for a celebrity – “I am invincible & almighty” – Denial and delusions of grandeur

Now this is about denial and delusion and grandeur – ‘I can do whatever I want; I’m above the law; it doesn’t apply to me and I have supernatural power.’

Number 15 psychological issue for a celebrity – “Fame has destroyed my family/marriage” – Fame’s impact on relationships

This is one of the impacts of fame on relationships and for various reasons. For example – I’ve talked about this before – take Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise. I realize they’re not together anymore but this is a classic example because there were many years where they were both working on movies at the same time and they would be apart from each other for six months because when you’re filming you could be away for 3 or 6 months on location and so you don’t get to see each other.

Your partner might come across and stay for a couple of weeks but now you are being separated.

So if it’s a celebrity couple, that’s already a first strain on the relationship. Then there’s the temptation – the drugs, the parties, the sex. Next, there’s all the other pressures of performing and creating and coming up to other people’s standards and continually producing great work and great art. So that, along with the constant eyes of everyone, and the criticism and judgment and condemnation could easily split a relationship.

Take Jennifer Aniston for example. She grew up with a very poor example of a healthy, functional marriage. Her parents didn’t get along well and Jennifer Aniston has talked about this before – she has admitted it when she said she is very insecure when it comes to relationships. so now when she is famous, it’s going to be even harder for her to have relationships because she is now judged on a completely different level and there’s different expectations as well as the actual pressure of being famous.

“Marriage brought up all the kind of things I pushed to the back-burner – the fear, the mistrust, the doubts, and the insecurities.” – Jennifer Aniston  https://www.patrickwanis.com/celebrity-issues-20-real-issues-childhood-pre-fame-issues/

Number 16 psychological issue for a celebrity – “Everyone else will take care of it” – Lack of responsibility & accountability, and destruction of core values

Lack of responsibility and accountability and destruction of core values. This is when you become so famous that you have an entourage: you have a hair stylist, you have a trainer, you have the caterer, you have the person that does PR, you have the image control and so therefore, you, the celebrity, lose all sense of accountability and responsibility.

I’ve experienced this with celebrity clients where the celebrity client isn’t paying me because they’re not even used to writing a check and therefore I have to chase their personal assistant and their other handlers to actually get paid. Now, how does this connect to mental health issues? Well, it depends on what your mental health issue is. If you grow up and you have a general issue where you were never taught to be held responsible or accountable of your actions, being famous is only going to make it worse.

Number 17 psychological issue for a celebrity – “I am a fraud. They’re going to find out the truth about me” – Impostor Syndrome

Now, you and I have this issue.

Every person on this planet has this issue to some extent: The belief that “I’m not good enough; there’s something wrong with me; I’m not good enough; I don’t deserve the best; I don’t deserve success; I don’t deserve riches; I don’t deserve wealth, etc. Then, you start to experience success and you start to achieve things and you think ‘wow is this really me? Maybe I don’t deserve this; maybe I’m just a fraud.’

We call it the Impostor Syndrome.

Charlie Sheen actually used these words in the 1980s while filming Wall Street and he said I’m afraid I’m going to get found out. People are going to find out that I’m just a fraud.

“‘Is this success all a fluke? Had I been fooling everybody so far? Will I get caught?’”
– Charlie Sheen https://www.patrickwanis.com/charlie-sheen-believes-he-is-a-loser/

So if already we suffer from low self-esteem and if already everyone has this issue thinking they’re not good enough, when you become a celebrity and suddenly this adulation is being showered, on you, and you’re getting this constant applause and you’re getting awards and recognition, it actually creates more self-doubt instead of creating more self-confidence.

Number 18 psychological issue for a celebrity – “I am so conflicted” – Cognitive Dissonance

This is what we refer to as Cognitive Dissonance: ‘I love fame but I hate fame. I’m great and yet I’m an impostor. My fans love me yet everyone uses me. I can do whatever I want and yet I’m a product and everyone owns me.’

So there are various Cognitive Dissonances that occur just from being a celebrity. Before we get to no. 19 and number 20….already you can see the pattern. If a person has mental health issues and has already experienced depression, anxiety, constant worry or if he/she is not good at handling stress, all of these issues are just going to make it worse for that person.

Number 19 psychological issue for a celebrity – “I am unique – no one understands me” – The Artist

Now this is the oddest. We often talk about the tortured artist. This is the person that’s creating great art – someone like Lady Gaga – she is someone who would be a classic example of this – she is performing for her fans and creating this art, yet deep within she still feels and believes that no one actually understands her. Maybe they don’t understand and connect with her art at the deep level that she wants them to or maybe they just don’t know the real her and therefore they don’t understand the artist

Number 20 psychological issue for a celebrity – “My real issue…” – Uncovering the core issues prior to becoming a celebrity

That means this is the core issue.

Every one of us has a real issue.

That means before we became anything, before we became famous, before we took on our first job, we already had a core issue – something that we grew up with as a result of something we experienced in our childhood.

So number 20 – “my real issue” is the real mental health issue of the celebrity before they became famous. So yes, fame can greatly impact someone and it can definitely make mental health issues much worse. The physical stress of being a celebrity (if you’re filming, you’re away for 3 or 6 months or you have to learn new talents or there are actual physical challenges, and physical stress along with the mental and the emotional stress.)

What I would recommend as a coping mechanism for someone such as Kanye West

The very first thing is he needs to get help and what we mean by that is he needs to go and engage in of two possibilities: during the period of crisis, he needs to go and see a psychiatrist. I believe in medication as a bridge – that means it’s a bridge to get you from here to there, help you through a crisis (‘let’s get over this crisis with some medication.’) However, that’s not really the answer to a person’s deep core problems. So in this case, Kanye West needs to do a couple of things:

Go to a psychiatrist to help him with medication for the crisis he is experiencing; and to engage in psychotherapy.

Psychotherapy along with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy might be effective. These are interventional therapies but they’re also preventative therapies, meaning cognitive behavioral therapy teaches you to become aware of what’s going on; cognitive meaning the mind the brain; behavioural meaning being able to engage the link between your behaviour & your mind, between your thoughts and your action. Cognitive behavioral therapy might be able to prevent you from doing something. Tap into what your feelings and emotions are and then using them to prevent you self-destructive or dangerous or violent behaviour. https://www.patrickwanis.com/therapy-training-online-srtt-subconscious-rapid-transformation-technique/     https://www.patrickwanis.com/phone-consultations/

So we talked about the top 20 issues of celebrities and what we specifically address although we touched on them in terms of expectations and demands it’s something like the tour Pablo’s tour where he is kind of performing 210 cities. That means he is constantly on the go. That means he is travelling, he might be on a bus, he might be on a plane but he has to travel. Means he is going to be deprived of sleep means he is not going to be able to eat properly he is not going to be able to follow the rhythms and wake up with sunrise and go to sleep a few hours after the sunset no he is going to be staying up all night he is going to be exhausting his adrenal glands he is going to be placing his whole body out of sync with nature.  So that’s going to make it worse So he needs people around him to guide him and say look you can’t do 210 cities in this short period of time. You can do 10 cities and you need to take a break then you do this and then you take a break. Of course if he is surrounded by his entourage, his handlers and people they’re not going to take care of him. So he needs real people around him who will be able to guide him and advise him and say you are doing too much. Back off.

What usually triggers these kinds of episodes (if they are indeed related to mental health issues) is anything that’s going to exacerbate or contribute to elevated stress, elevated anxiety and elevated physical stress, mental stress and emotional stress – and, of course, that’s going to lead to elevated anxiety. So if we look at the pattern that Kanye West seems to have revealed at least in the public eye, we see episodes of manic we see episodes of depressed state we see episodes of hallucinations we see episodes of delusions, grandeur. So living a lifestyle of constant pressure of constant get up and go performing it in 210 cities is all going to contribute to physical stress. Stress that’s going to physical stress, mental stress- having to perform, emotional stress- having to give from yourself to your audience and I can assure you that even if someone that has spoken before audiences and I have done training programs workshops and presentations of audiences of 1300 people that when you are doing this for many-many hours you come away feeling like you’ve lost something like there’s an emptiness for a moment. You feel physically and mentally drained as you’ve been talking and engaging your mind. And then you feel like you need to be refilled again. Like you’ve actually given a part of your soul. And also I was a performer in the past and I was a dancer so I understand this is why the reason I can engage very well and help so many actors, celebrities, musicians, actors, dancers etc. is because I understand the performing art and what it does to you.

So anything that any situation where there’s going to be additional elevated physical stress, mental, emotional stress is going to contribute to anxiety and a deprivation of sleep or an imbalance in the rhythm is going to make mental health issues much worse. What would be really good for that is meditation and yoga. Yoga incidentally is another form of meditation, it’s not deep stretching or how flexible you are. Yoga is designed for you to be engaging in constant deep breathing in a relaxed state while being in these extraordinary poses that are challenging your body. And yoga also seems to engage the parasympathetic nervous system that is the nervous system that engages in rest and digest and rejuvenation.

So people such as Kanye West need to do a lot of meditation and a lot of yoga and a lot of deep breathing. As a way of reducing stress and teaching you to look at life from a completely different perspective. It’s about the teachings of Buddhism which is becoming more detached from outcomes and expectations not thinking that you are what you perform or thinking that you are what people say you are and not thinking that you are just a human doing but rather you are also a human being.

And finally what responsibility does the public have to Kanye West during a time like this?

I would say that is there is a responsibility for the public: it’s to let him do what he needs to do. You know we can rant and rave on Facebook and social media, and I don’t think that adds a meaning or it helps him unless his fans want to actually make themselves feel better first by saying you know ‘get well, I believe in you, you’re a great talent, we miss you, we wish you we support, you we believe in you.’ Then if he actually gets to read any of those then he might say ‘wow. People actually care.’ And that would actually help him to be more compassionate, sympathetic and empathetic to himself and others.

This is Patrick Wanis Human Behavior Expert PhD and Celebrity Life Coach.