Mariah Carey tells of bipolar disorder

Mariah Carey says she has bipolar disorder, explaining that after years of suffering in silence, “I refuse to allow it to define me or control me.”

In People magazine’s April 23 issue, the 48-year-old singer-songwriter described how the mental health condition has affected her and her attempts to cope.

“For a long time I thought I had a severe sleep disorder,” said Carey, above. “But it wasn’t normal insomnia and I wasn’t lying awake counting sheep. I was working and working and working . ... I was irritable and in constant fear of letting people down. It turns out that I was experiencing a form of mania. Eventually I would just hit a wall. I guess my depressive episodes were characterized by having very low energy. I would feel so lonely and sad — even guilty that I wasn’t doing what I needed to be doing for my career.”

In 2001, Carey checked herself into a hospital for what her publicist called “an emotional and physical breakdown” and was placed under psychiatric care.

Carey told People that during a hospitalization in 2001 she was diagnosed with bipolar II disorder — which, she said, she “didn’t want to believe.”

Bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression, is a mental health condition characterized by extreme mood swings, from “ups” (mania) to “downs” (depression), according to the National Institute of Mental Health.