David Funes went from making more than $200,000 a year in finance to a low-wage delivery job due to choices made during manic episodes before being diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He suffered extreme mood swings between depression and manic episodes, which lasted days or weeks.
For Funes, 41, the mania included wild bouts of partying, drugs, white collar crime, and cheating. “There’s the chaos that has all the crazy stories, and then there’s the comeback, which is all about how I came back from rock bottom — and everything that’s helped me with my mental illness,” he tells PEOPLE exclusively.
Known as BipolarGuyLovingLife on TikTok and Instagram, he’s also written a book, Manic in Miami, out now. He’s “extremely honest” about his past, he says, to “shed light on mental illness as much as possible.” Now a mental health advocate who coaches others with bipolar, his goal is to “help people with mental illness know that they’re not alone in the struggle, and that there is hope.”
He shares his story with PEOPLE’s Cara Lynn Shultz.
My first memory is pretty messed up. I was 4 years old, my dad was choking my mom. I was crying, pleading for him to stop.
Studies have shown that childhood trauma as well as genetic predisposition can contribute to bipolar disorder. Several of my relatives have bipolar, so I had both. I had my first minor episode at 20 years old in 2005. I was in Bible college studying to be a minister. I got hit with a major depressive episode. I was a straight-A student but I started failing. Your mind becomes slow as molasses. A dark cloud engulfs your mind, stifling the joy out of it and you.
The doctor gave me meds, but they gave me terrible side effects; I stopped taking them and rode out that episode. It was super scary because I thought I might be stuck forever in this thing that I didn’t understand.
When I was 26, I had my first major manic episode. I had married my college sweetheart, we were living in Jacksonville, Fla., and I was working in finance. Suddenly, I didn’t need a lot of sleep. I had tons of extra energy, supreme self-confidence, impulsivity, recklessness. My sex drive went through the roof. I ended up cheating on my wife.
This is what I feel the most shame about: She didn’t deserve it. She didn’t do anything wrong. I cheated on her, packed my bags and moved out. After drinking maybe five times in my life, I started partying every night. My friends and family didn’t recognize me.
I went into hedonistic pleasure-seeking mode. Consequences didn’t matter. With mania, you fall in love really fast, so I fell in love with a Mexican au pair. I tell her we’re gonna get married — while I was still married to my wife. I fly to Mexico. We go ring shopping. Then I get hit with my worst depressive episode yet, and I had suicidal thoughts. I took myself to the mental hospital, and was diagnosed with bipolar at age 27.
I felt a sense of relief to have a name to what was wrong. I started medicine to control the mania, but I felt like a walking zombie. I stopped taking the medicine, which threw me into another manic episode. I began doing drugs. I became a coke addict. Through my party friends, I became involved in pharmaceutical sales fraud, so I quit finance and did that full time through a shady marketing company.
I wanted money to party as hard as possible in Miami and Vegas. It was easy — until the FBI raided our Jacksonville offices in May 2015. I was facing up to 7 years in prison, so my mania flipped into a depressive state. I go to Vegas, do the most possible drugs for 12 straight nights and went back to mania. I did a back flip and hit the side of the pool, didn’t get stitches. It got really infected and I ended up in the hospital.
Twelve nights in Vegas is a very bad thing.
I was all out partying. My lawyer told me to slow down, but instead, I bought an after-hours nightclub in Austin and moved there. Every night, I’m there, doing the most drugs I’ve ever done. I moved my drug dealer into my spare bedroom so I could get a discount.
I blew through hundreds of thousands of dollars partying, became homeless, living out of really cheap motels, lost everything‚ and had another major depressive episode. At my wits’ end, I went to my psychiatrist, who put me on the right meds. It completely changed my brain chemistry, and I began to rebuild my life.
Once you get stable, there’s a reckoning. You feel awful about the people you’ve hurt, the things you’ve done. It’s a lot of guilt and shame. It’s like watching someone else’s life. The hardest part is those things I did are so out of character, but I still take complete responsibility for it.
I haven’t had a major manic or depressive episode since 2018. I don’t ever want to say that every bipolar person needs to be on meds, but I had to be on meds. My stories might sound fun, but the lows were so much worse than the highs. I don’t ever want to experience that again.
I pled guilty to the fraud charges in 2019 and went on probation. Four years later, I bought a one-way ticket to Vietnam and stayed for six months, journaling, meditating — the whole Eat, Pray Love experience. There, I realized my meaningful mission is to help people. I accepted and started to love myself. I’ve given my life to be a mental health advocate.
After I became stable, I went back and apologized in the most sincere way to everyone that I’d hurt. I made amends to rebuild and repair most of my relationships and friendships. What had happened was not characteristic of who I was as a person.
I had a hard time finding work due to my felony charges, so I was grateful for the opportunity to work as a delivery driver for minimal wages while building my social media presence. It took months; when I got my first coaching client, I was so happy I cried. I had so much joy and fulfillment from doing that first call. The right path was being rewarded.
I wrote Manic in Miami to help other people who are struggling. I want it to be entertaining but also encouraging, to shed light on mental illness, and to be extremely honest about it.
These days, even though I spend time reflecting on my past and trying to understand it, my real focus is on the future and being the best person I can be moving forward.
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