It seems like Linsey Godfrey is finally relieved of her mental health issue.
Last year, the 33-year-old revealed her borderpolar diagnosis on social media. She was diagnosed with the condition in 2019.
The Days Of Our Lives star recently told PEOPLE “I had been struggling for so long, and I knew I wasn’t okay. Even though it was a big, awful pill to swallow, I was relieved to finally have an answer and not just, ‘You’re a sh**ty person.’”
Godfrey experienced symptoms of depression and hypomania. However, she is now happy and healthy thanks to medication, cognitive behavioral therapy, and strong support from her family and friends. She said she hopes that sharing her story will help others who are going through such mental health issues.
Godfrey said, “It was nerve-racking, and I genuinely thought I would never work again. But as soon as I did it, someone commented, ‘Thank you.’ It was worth it to know that one person went, ‘Oh my God. It’s not just me.’”
People with borderpolar disorder have both borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder.
Dr. Mark Zimmerman, a professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown University, explained to PEOPLE, “Borderpolar refers to individuals with borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder. Some 20% of individuals with one diagnosis have the other.”
“There’s been so much focus on the differences between them, no one really looked at what are the implications of having both,” he added.
“So we did a study in which we looked at individuals with both and compared them to a group of individuals with bipolar disorder and a group of individuals with borderline personality disorder and found, not surprisingly, the impact of two problems on a person’s wellbeing tends to be more significant than the impact of just one problem,” added Dr. Zimmerman, who helped coin the mental health term.
He explained that people with this disorder have symptoms of “unstable mood with marked shifts from one mood state to another; significant ups and downs; an inner sense of emptiness and uncertainty of one’s identity; difficulties regulating their temper; impulsivity across a number of different areas, such as eating, substance use, or sexual behavior; and self-harm behavior, threats of suicidality, as well as suicide attempts.”
Dr. Zimmerman said treatment includes psychotherapy, medication, and therapy for the mood instability of bipolar, adding, “These people can get better.”
Godfrey said, “Mental illness doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t care who you are, or what family you were born into, or what your experiences were. The more we talk about it, the less alone everybody would feel.”
