David Chang

• Chang has publicly identified himself as having Bipolar I disorder. He began working with his longtime therapist in 2004 but has written that the therapist did not explicitly confirm the bipolar diagnosis to him until years later. Chang discussed the diagnosis extensively in his 2020 memoir Eat a Peach. [1]

• Chang has described both manic and depressive periods. He has identified a period while living in Japan as his first serious manic episode and later described a prolonged depression while working at Café Boulud as the lowest point he had experienced. During that depressive period, he repeatedly thought about suicide and deliberately put himself in dangerous situations. [4]
• Chang has also described episodes of intense anger. Looking back on his years running restaurants, he has acknowledged yelling at employees, ruling through fear and hurting people around him. [4][5]

• Chang began working with his longtime therapist in 2004. He has described undergoing years of therapy and using a variety of behavioral therapies and medications to manage his symptoms. [1]
• In 2020, Chang said that talking with his psychiatrist had been crucial to his efforts to understand and manage what was happening in his mind. [6]

• Chang has described managing his mental health as an ongoing process rather than something completed. In 2020, he called himself a “work in progress” and said he continued to struggle with some of the patterns he had developed around work and mental health. [4][1]
• Becoming a father also led him to reassess his priorities and speak about wanting to be more present with his family. [4]

• Chang has said that one reason he wrote openly about his mental health in Eat a Peach was that he wanted the memoir to be useful to other people. He has described deciding to include difficult parts of his life rather than present a more polished version of himself. [4][5]
• He has also stressed that understanding his mental illness does not excuse harmful behavior. In discussing his treatment of employees and others, Chang has acknowledged responsibility for the effects of his actions and the need to change. [4][5]

“Bipolar has given me the very best of myself as a chef and the very worst of me as a chef.”

— David Chang [1]