"Stranger Things" star David Harbour revealed that he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at the age of 25.
Harbour, who grabbed limelight with his portrayal of police officer Jim Hopper in the hit Netflix series, revealed in an interview with comedian Marc Maron on his WTF podcast that when he was 25 he had a manic episode after which he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
"I really had like, a bit of a break where I thought I was in connection to some sort of God that I wasn't really in connection to. It was like I had all the answers suddenly," Harbour recalled while talking about the pre-diagnosis period.
Harbour said that never consumed drugs as he "realised that I don't really need them".
"That I have a capacity to see the elves in the corners of my room if I really allow myself to go there. So I actually was, by my parents, taken into a mental asylum," he said.
Contrary to his fantasies, the actor said he got a reality check after he was admitted to the institution and he realised that being there was not "fun".
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"I have one thing to say about the mental asylum: I've romanticised two things in my life and both have fallen short. One is being in a mental asylum. Really not as fun as you think it is. You do have a romantic idea of it (like) 'you're a genius' and it just ends up being sad and smells like s**t. And the other thing was boating. I just recently went out on a ship in open water and I'd read 'Moby Dick' a million times and it really is not as sexy. It's very similar to the mental asylum experience," he added.
The actor said the "drugs came in" after his bipolar diagnosis.
"I've been medicated bipolar for a long time. And I've had problems going on and off. I've had a struggle, going on and off the medications," he added.