Kanye West has opened up about his experience with bipolar disorder, recalling a time he was hospitalised for not taking his medicine.

The Keeping Up With The Kardashian star was diagnosed two years ago, after being 'handcuffed and hospitalised' due to reports of erratic behaviour in December 2016.

Kanye West had shared stories about his mental health and experience with bipolar disorder during a new episode of David Letterman's show My Next Guest Needs No Introduction.

Via Entertainment Tonight, the rapper and KUWTK star opened up about what it's like living with bipolar, before explaining what happens when he doesn't take his medication. "If you don’t take medication every day to keep you at a certain state, you have a potential to ramp up and it can take you to a point where you can even end up in the hospital. And you start acting erratic, as TMZ would put it."

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Expanding on what he means by 'ramp it up', Kane continued, "When you ramp up, it expresses your personality more. You can become almost more adolescent in your expression. This is my specific experience that I’ve had over the past two years, because I’ve only been diagnosed for two years now."

Kanye went on to describe what happened when he experienced a "bipolar episode" that eventually landed him in hospital. "When you’re in this state, you're hyper-paranoid about everything. Everyone - this is my experience, other people have different experiences - everyone now is an actor. Everything's a conspiracy.

"You feel the government is putting chips in your head. You feel you’re being recorded. You feel all these things. You have this moment [where] you feel everyone wants to kill you. You pretty much don’t trust anyone."

Kanye with Kim at the Met Gala 2019 Getty Images

Kanye added that he hopes opening up about his own experience of hospitalisation will help others to understand bipolar disorder, and to encourage hospitals to reevaluate how they treat patients with mental disorders.

"[The hospital] have this moment where they put you—they handcuff you, they drug you, they put you on the bed, and they separate you from everyone you know," West said. "That’s something that I am so happy that I experienced myself so I can start by changing that moment. When you are in that state, you have to have someone you trust. It is cruel and primitive to do that."

Huge kudos to Kanye for being so open and honest about his experiences with bipolar disorder, which will in turn hopefully encourage others to feel more comfortable accepting their own.

Dusty Baxter-Wright Senior Entertainment & Lifestyle Writer Dusty Baxter-Wright is Cosmopolitan's Senior Entertainment and Lifestyle Writer, covering celebrities, movies, TV and books as well as travel, interiors, food and drink on a daily basis.

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