HOW MUSIC HELPS ME LIVE WITH BIPOLAR DISORDER

By Anastasiia Ledovskaia (LEMY)

I'm Anastasiia Ledovskaia, a 33-year-old indie musician known as LEMY. I've been writing, singing, recording, and performing my songs for six years now. And I live with bipolar disorder. That night in Glasgow changed my life, but it took me nearly a decade of chaos to get to that place.

My mother was an artistic soul forced to work as a doctor. She gave me a passion for music before I was even born, as she attended the local philharmonic while pregnant. She played Chopin for me before sleep. She took me to concerts: Ennio Morricone, Ray Charles, Vanessa Mae. Later, my mother and I visited many operas around the world. I even saw La Traviata at age 12. Music was essential in our family; it was our way to share feelings.

My mother died when I was 17. That year, I left Moscow State University. Everyone saw grief. What they didn't see was my first bipolar episode, though nobody used those words in Russia in 2009. The stigma around mental illness meant being completely alone and helpless. I was undiagnosed. Received no treatment. It was chaos I couldn’t even name.

At 26, I tried studying journalism again. I made it two years before dropping out. At that time, I felt scattered to the wind. I'd wake up electric with ideas, flooded with energy and absolute certainty. I'd master photography. No, painting. No, dance. I'd start projects with total conviction, consuming books, watching tutorials, making plans, only to abandon everything weeks later when the crash came.

During elevated phases, I wanted everything, everywhere, all at once. The world felt too small, time too limited. I felt like there was no tomorrow; I needed everything NOW. I could do it all, be it all. During depressive episodes, I just wasn’t there, and nothing seemed worth doing. I'd stare at half-completed projects, feeling enormous guilt that paralyzed me even more.

I was everywhere and nowhere, trying to be everything, becoming no one in particular.

After that night at TRNSMT, I bought my first guitar online. It just suddenly made more sense than anything. Then I finally found a good psychiatrist in Moscow and got diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 27. I wrote «bipolar bear» on my Instagram bio.

I studied music, took voice training, and learned song writing. But most of what I know came from trial and error. I was writing at 3 a.m. when sleep wouldn't come, recording demos on my phone, embarrassing myself at my first jam sessions (it was a rap gig, really not my thing). That same trial and error went into trying to find the right medication. Medicines were prescribed, I increased doses, side effects came quickly, and I felt ten times worse than before. But after several adjustments, something finally began to work.

The studio became my laboratory for understanding how to live with my condition. I work with my producer Vlad in a Moscow studio that hums with fluorescent lights, old gear, vinyl recordings, and soundproofing that makes me feel safe to express myself. Some sessions are electric: ideas flowing, vocals strong. On other days, I can barely speak. My voice is weak and cracking, I clear my throat compulsively every two seconds, and my hands tremble. I can't hold a guitar pick steady.

Since 2020, medication has given me baseline stability. But bipolar disorder still shapes every aspect of how I create.

I need to say something crucial, something dangerous myths have obscured: elevated mood states are not creative gifts. This idea, that mania fuels artistic genius, keeps people from seeking treatment. It nearly kept me from seeking treatment. During hypomanic or manic phases, ideas surge uncontrollably. I record voice memos, sometimes dozens in a single night. Some of them are genuinely useful, a melody, a lyric fragment, or a production idea. Most are complete garbage I'll delete when I'm stable. This flooding of thoughts isn't genius. It's dysregulation that exhausts me and produces mostly unusable material. The restlessness, the racing thoughts, the inability to focus - these are symptoms requiring management, not inspiration to harness. Vlad learned to recognize these phases. He'll gently redirect me: "Let's capture this idea quickly, then come back to it next week." He's saving me from the over-commitment and impulsive decisions that used to burn my life down.

In depressive phases, the weight is crushing. Notes feel impossibly heavy. My voice, already soft, strains and breaks. Every word costs energy. Some days, just showing up to the studio feels like trying to move a mountain. Once, during a particularly dark week, I tried recording vocals for a track we'd been working on for months. Take after take, my voice cracked. Not beautifully, not artfully, just broken. I left the booth, sat on the floor, and cried. Vlad made tea. He waited. Then he said: "What if we record it exactly like this? Raw. Fragile. Flawed." We did. We layered it with reverb, let the breaks and cracks remain. It became one of the most honest moments on my album. Not because depression is beautiful, it's not. But because vulnerability, documented and held gently, can transform into connection.

Six years of treatment taught me to work with both states rather than against them.

Hypomanic energy requires containment. I write down ideas quickly and then I wait until I'm stable to evaluate them. This protects me from overcommitting, from making impulsive decisions that future me will have to untangle. Depressive phases require gentleness. I lower expectations. If I can only record one vocal line, that's enough. If I can only sit in the studio and drink tea with Vlad, that's okay too. Some days, showing up is the work. Medication is non-negotiable. It provides the foundation that makes everything else possible. Without it, I couldn't sustain relationships, a career, or my life. I take it every day, even when I feel over the moon, even when I'm tempted to "test" if I still need it. Structure saves me. Regular sleep schedule, even when hypomania screams at me to stay awake. Morning walks with my dog Matt, even when depression glues me to bed. Consistent studio session times with Vlad. When everything feels chaotic, structure provides anchors.

Communication is essential. Vlad knows about my diagnosis. We adjust session length, lighting, and intensity based on my current state. I've learned to say: "I need breaks today," or "Let's work fast while I have energy," or "I can't sing today, let's focus on production." No one can read minds. Assertiveness is a skill I'm still learning.

My album dropped in May 2025. It's entirely in Russian, about living with a brain that betrays you and loving someone when you don't know who you'll be tomorrow. Each track took months: record, scrap, rebuild until it felt true.

I came to music later than some. But when I found it, I knew I didn't want to scatter myself anymore. The old pattern of starting and abandoning, of being everywhere and nowhere, that's over. Music is where I need to be. It's the only format that feels completely mine.

I attend a support group sometimes. A white room, afternoon sunlight, women with dyed hair and careful makeup. Nobody looks "sick." We talk about depression that glues you to bed for weeks. Elevated states that burn your life down, destroyed relationships, spent savings, decisions you can't undo. Trying to hold jobs and maintain relationships through it all.

After one session, I went home and wrote "1000 Lives" in a single sitting. It's about the versions of myself that didn't survive. The photographer. The painter. The dancer. The journalist. The girl whose mother died too young. They're ghosts I carry, versions of me that existed before I learned what was wrong, before treatment, before stability. We're just people: work, friends, dogs, music. The illness is there, but it's not all we are.

Music doesn't cure bipolar disorder. Treatment helps. Therapy helps. Structure helps. Support groups help. Music is simply where I put what words can't hold. When I sing "keep your spirits up till the morning light" or "don't you know you're worth fighting for," it's not a motivational quote. It's me reminding myself to stay. To not disappear. To keep showing up, even on the quiet days when my voice is soft and my hands shake.

On stage, something locks into place. The songs become real. The audience makes them real. And I'm fully myself, a musician living with bipolar disorder, neither hiding it nor letting it define me.

If you're 17, stuck in bed, feeling broken: you're not. Your brain's just wired differently.

If you're 26, scattering yourself, unable to finish anything: I know. Keep looking.

If you're afraid medication will steal your creativity: I was too. It didn't. It gave me the stability to actually complete things.

Find your thing. Hold on. Some days are good. Many aren't. But I'm here at 33: making albums, playing shows, writing at 3 a.m., learning to live with my condition. Still learning. Still adapting. Still showing up. Supporting young musicians with mental health challenges is everything to me. I'm ready to help, to show you that music and this life can coexist, with proper treatment, support, and self-compassion.

We're not alone. Recovery isn't linear. But it's possible.