David Galipeau
David Galipeau, Passion about the human nature.
Answered Nov 27, 2018 · Upvoted by Paul Regalos Urban, Ph.D Life and Living, School of Hard Knocks · Author has 2k answers and 3.5m answer views.
I had a 4.0 in school. I won many awards. I was in the army. Everyone respected me. Someone even called me “little Einstein”. I was the best student everyone has ever known. In a single instant, 7 years ago, I lost everything. In a neuropharmacology lab, after 6 months of depression, I began to experience manic symptoms. I had delusions of grandeur. I thought I could publish in Nature Neuroscience. I thought I understood light as a particle and a wave. I was transcribing articles on radiology on Wikipedia thinking I unlocked my infinite potential and that I could be a radiologist myself. Not too long after that, I was deemed mad. I had bipolar 1.
In the beginning, I didn’t believe it. It shocked me so much. The social stigma of mental illness is huge, it affected the way my friends were seeing me. Most people around me left me. They thought I was a danger to society. They began to fear me. I was alone with a terrible illness. I had accomplished 2 years of university. I was far from finishing my bachelor. How do you turn your life around in a moment of emergency like this?
I was accepted to medical school just before being ill. I had to postpone my admission for one year. In September 2012, 3 weeks after starting medical school, I thought I would never be able to study again. I was comparing myself to others. I believed I was worthless and less smart. I considered a 2 weeks stay maximum at the hospital. It lasted 4 months and a half. During this stay, I began to write as a suggestion of the resident that was following me.
I started with 1 page. Then I continued with 5 pages. I finished at 100 pages. Since then, I’ve never stopped writing. I was writing for my own benefit. When I realized that I had a good potential. I thought I could publish online. I began with Quora. I was writing almost daily. Nearly 2,000 answers later, I’m at 3m views. I managed to get recognition for my writing. I now contribute daily to the life of many people all over the world.
I receive the private message of people telling me that they suffer the same way I do. Beyond culture, beyond races and beyond colors of skins, we have all the same needs. We need to feel loved and appreciated by our entourage. You need to find your own niche. You need to use your talents for the welfare of others. Whatever you are good at, use it to be a source of benediction. You can be an oasis in the desert. You can be a shark in the ocean. You can be an eagle in the sky. You can be the captain of a big ship. You can be the person you were always meant to be. You could be yourself.
