It was 1986. A Nigerian friend named Paul and I were working as fitness instructors at a London health club. We decided to quit and travel across Southeast Asia for a year. I was 22.

The adventure for me would be short-lived and mark the start of an exhausting life-long struggle with Bipolar Disorder. The message I want my Reuters colleagues to take from this blog is this: don’t ignore the signs of mental illness. Listen to your family and friends. Seek professional help early and trust what the medical experts say.

Paul was jetlagged when we arrived in Bangkok. I was bursting with energy, hitting an outdoor gym in the suffocating heat while I got psyched up to explore the city. I had about three hours sleep in four nights but thought nothing of it.

At our hotel, I heard about trekking the Golden Triangle, lawless territory between Thailand, Laos and Burma where the heroin trade flourished. Paul was not thrilled, but I persuaded him to go.

We found a guide called Ting in the mountainous northern city of Chiang Mai. Ting suggested a short trek first. I insisted on a five-day hike.

We walked into the relentless humidity of the Thai jungle. On the second day I began getting impatient because Paul and Ting couldn’t keep up. I was excited by the sound of gunfire in the distance. I wanted to get closer.

I ignored Ting’s warnings about disease. I drank from a river, fancying myself as a special forces soldier on a secret mission. That was delusion number one.

A hissing cobra didn’t faze me. A wild horse ran towards me, almost forcing me off a cliff. Bring it on, I thought.

We came upon a wooden hut. An old addict lay on rotting wood, smoking opium. I smoked from his pipe then vomited.

We resumed trekking the next morning. Sweat dripped off me. Paul was angry. When we arrived at the Golden Triangle, I went into a coffee shop. A woman was reading a newspaper. On the front page I saw an article about me – another figment of my imagination. People gave me strange looks, like I was crazed.

When we got back to Chiang Mai, Ting suggested Paul and I share a hotel room. I punched a door near Paul’s face and said I would stay alone and that I wanted to go back to the jungle. I was unaware of the weight I’d shed in just five days.

“We need to take you somewhere,” said Ting. They took me to a Chiang Mai mental hospital. There, a nurse injected me with a sedative. When I woke an American woman stood next to my bed. She was a psychiatrist working on a project in Thailand who had been asked to check on me.

“Have you ever been diagnosed with a mental illness? Your condition is very serious,” she said calmly. I was confused and started crying.

I escaped from the hospital the next day. Barefoot and wearing pyjamas, I ran laps around the facility. A growling street dog approached. I waved my hand at it, believing I had special power over animals.

I was readmitted to the hospital. A few days later I emerged from my bathroom, shocked to find close family members standing there, horrified looks on their faces. They fought back tears.

Ting had found my brother’s phone number in a small notebook I carried around and urged him to come to Thailand to take me home to New York. 

“It’s time to go home Michael. You’re in very bad shape,” said my brother. “You need help.”

“No way. I’m going on another trek. There is no need for you to be here,” I replied.

He called my father, a cardiologist. I heard my father scream through the telephone when he was informed what kind of sedative I was on. “That is banned in the United States. It can fell an elephant,” he said.

I flew home. My mother stood outside our house as I stepped from the car. She and my father were filled with anxiety. I saw a psychiatrist who said I was either bipolar or schizophrenic.

I wasn’t ready to explore those possibilities or their treatments because of the stigma around mental illness.

I still longed for the Golden Triangle. My girlfriend Louise, who I had met in London, moved to New York to be with me.

I told Louise the psychiatrist had suggested I take lithium, a mood stabilizer. We laughed. That was only for crazy people, we thought.

Whenever we walked past a Thai or Burmese restaurant I’d look at Louise, insisting it was a sign I had to go back to Southeast Asia.

To the despair of my family, I convinced Louise to travel to the Golden Triangle a year later. I craved that high again. But there was no elation this time. I was mentally stable. And Louise hated the jungle.

A few years later, my psychiatrist formally diagnosed me as bipolar and said I needed to carefully manage my illness. He explained what had happened during my trek with Paul. People with Bipolar 1 – the most serious type – have one massive manic episode then less severe ones, often followed by clinical depression.

I have since made huge progress, overcoming stigma with the support of loved ones and friends as well as my bosses and colleagues at Reuters.

The last time I went to Thailand I stayed in a five-star hotel and embarked on a far less risky adventure – taking a tourist boat down a Bangkok river.

I drank a soft drink instead of river water and enjoyed the sights. 

Michael Georgy is the Reuters deputy Middle East editor and special Middle East correspondent. He has covered just about every conflict in the region for the last 22 years. Mike was Cairo bureau chief from 2012 for three years. Before that he served as Pakistan and Afghanistan bureau chief and worked in Southern Africa. You can read his Reuters blog on living with Bipolar Disorder here and the trauma that sneaks up on war correspondents here.

This blog first circulated internally on April 25, 2018.

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