AJ Mendez got deeply personal on State Of Mind with Maurice Benard, opening up about how her mother’s bipolar disorder helped her understand her own mental health.
Maurice Benard asked AJ directly whether her mother is bipolar, and AJ confirmed that she is. She explained that her mother went undiagnosed for a long time, and watching that struggle helped AJ realize how important it was to stay on top of her own condition.
“My mom is. Yeah. There’s a chapter in the book called how to like turn into your mother, which is everyone’s fear, but she taught me a lot in seeing her struggles with it and staying undiagnosed for a really long time and struggling without the medication to help her.”
AJ said her mother eventually found what worked for her, but it was not an easy process.
“I’m not sure what she’s on. I think she’s been on a cocktail of a few different things and the diagnosis has changed over the years. But she’s found the right method for her now. But it took a while, but that was really helpful for me, unfortunately. She had to go through that to kind of teach me, okay, let me stay on top of this.”
Mendez also said that, as a kid, she did not fully understand what was happening. She just thought the highs, lows, and intense behavior were part of her mother’s personality.
“It’s interesting because you don’t know what it is. You just think it’s that person’s personality, you know, the ups and the downs.”
AJ said she now has much more empathy for the things that scared her growing up.
“She’s just intense. Just don’t want to get in trouble with mom. And now as an adult, I have so much empathy for stuff that scared me as a kid and was like a lot to deal with. And as an adult, I’m like, well, she was going through such a struggle and had nobody helping her.”
Her mother’s diagnosis eventually became a turning point for AJ as well, because it helped her recognize the same symptoms in herself.
“That is also her getting that diagnosis is when I was like, ‘Oh, I have the exact same symptoms as her. I think I have the same thing.’ And then I went on my journey of getting a diagnosis because she got hers first.”
AJ Mendez has always been open about mental health, but this conversation showed just how much her mother’s battle shaped her own journey. It was a heavy topic, but AJ handled it with the kind of honesty fans have come to expect from her.
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