Narrator: In 2016, Andrew Dunn, the founder of the wildly successful menswear brand Bonobos, found himself in the back of a police van, handcuffed and terrified. Just a week earlier, he had been in the throes of a severe manic episode, a psychotic break that led to him howling at the moon, destroying property, and assaulting the two people he loved most: his fiancée, Manuela, and her mother. After a week in the psychiatric ward at Bellevue Hospital, he wasn't being released to his family, but to the New York City justice system, facing felony charges. This terrifying moment was not the beginning of his story, but the violent culmination of a sixteen-year secret battle with an illness he refused to name.

This harrowing journey from the heights of entrepreneurial success to the depths of a psychiatric ward and a jail cell is chronicled in his frank and powerful memoir, Am I Ok?. Dunn pulls back the curtain on the carefully curated image of the successful founder to reveal the chaotic, painful, and ultimately hopeful story of confronting bipolar disorder in a world that demands unwavering stability.

Narrator: Andrew Dunn’s struggle with mental illness did not begin in a vacuum. It was a ghost inherited from a family history marked by both incredible resilience and a profound tendency to bury difficult truths. On his mother’s side, his family was shaped by the trauma of the 1947 partition of India, which forced his grandparents to flee their home and rebuild their lives as refugees. This experience instilled a powerful work ethic and a deep sense of family loyalty.

However, on his father’s side, a darker legacy lurked. His paternal grandmother, Nana, had served as a surgical army nurse on the front lines of World War II, witnessing the horrors of Normandy and the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp. She returned from the war a different person, suffering from what would now be recognized as severe PTSD. Her husband, Dunn’s grandfather, was a psychiatrist who treated her with barbiturates and institutionalization, all while the family moved frequently to hide the “embarrassment” of her condition. The family’s unspoken rule was to pretend everything was okay. This legacy of suppressed pain and the stigma surrounding mental illness meant Dunn grew up with no framework for understanding the storm brewing in his own mind. This silence became a blueprint for his own denial when, during his sophomore year of college, a combination of drug use and academic pressure triggered his first full-blown manic and psychotic episode, landing him in a psychiatric ward with a diagnosis he would spend the next sixteen years trying to outrun.

Narrator: After his initial diagnosis, Dunn chose denial. He threw himself into the world of high achievement, first at a consulting firm and then at Stanford Business School, a place that celebrated the entrepreneurial spirit. It was here that the idea for Bonobos was born. His roommate, Brian Spaly, was obsessed with a simple problem: men’s pants didn’t fit well. This observation, combined with Spaly’s design sense and Dunn’s relentless drive, became the foundation for Bonobos.

The company’s early days were a whirlwind of hustle. Dunn moved to New York City, turning his apartment into a warehouse stacked with pants. He hired his first employees and secured crucial early funding from mentors who believed in his vision. However, this period of intense creation was also a form of self-medication. The constant pressure and the thrill of building something from nothing provided a powerful distraction from the "Ghost" of his diagnosis. He was a "wantrepreneur" who successfully became an entrepreneur, but the foundation of his success was built on the fractured ground of his untreated mental illness. This created a dangerous dynamic where the highs of the startup world could easily fuel his hypomania, blurring the line between visionary leadership and the early stages of a manic spiral.

Narrator: As Bonobos grew, so did the friction between Dunn and his co-founder, Spaly. Dunn describes their differing visions: Spaly was a scrappy bootstrapper focused on selling pants, while Dunn was a "swing-for-the-fences dreamer" who wanted to change how brands were built. This fundamental conflict was exacerbated by Dunn's own internal turmoil. He writes, "When you’re fighting a hole in your own soul, the first step is to invent a real-world enemy to stand in as a proxy." For Dunn, Spaly became that proxy.

Their disagreements escalated from minor spats over the color of a pair of pants to major strategic battles. Dunn, driven by his own insecurities and a need for control, began to see Spaly not as a partner but as an obstacle. He solicited negative 360-degree feedback on Spaly from the team and presented it to the board, a move he later recognized as a biased and destructive act. The partnership became toxic, defined by what relationship expert John Gottman calls the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse": criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. Eventually, Dunn forced Spaly out of the company. It was a victory that felt hollow, as he would later realize that the enemy he was fighting was not his co-founder, but the unmanaged illness within himself.

Narrator: For years, Dunn managed to keep his "Ghost" at bay, but the immense pressure of scaling Bonobos, coupled with his refusal to fully accept his diagnosis, created a ticking time bomb. In 2016, that bomb detonated. The trigger was a perfect storm of stress, lack of sleep, and the emotional intensity of his new life with his fiancée, Manuela. His hypomania, which had so often fueled his business success, spiraled into a full-blown manic episode.

The breakdown was terrifying and violent. In their Greenwich Village apartment, Dunn descended into a psychotic state, believing he was a messiah on a mission from God. He became paranoid and aggressive, culminating in a physical altercation with Manuela and her mother, who were trying to help him. The night ended with a 911 call and Dunn being taken away in an ambulance to Bellevue Hospital. This was the moment his carefully constructed world shattered, forcing his secret illness out into the open in the most public and damaging way possible. The episode led to his hospitalization, arrest, and felony assault charges, forcing him to confront the devastating consequences of his untreated condition.

Narrator: The aftermath of the 2016 episode was a painful but necessary reckoning. Facing legal charges and the potential ruin of his personal and professional life, Dunn had no choice but to finally surrender. This surrender was the beginning of his true recovery. He found a psychiatrist, Dr. Z, who provided integrated therapy and medication management, a combination that proved transformative. He began taking Lamictal, a mood stabilizer, and for the first time, felt the chaotic swings in his brain begin to quiet.

The journey required radical honesty. Dunn disclosed his bipolar diagnosis to the Bonobos board, who responded not with judgment, but with empathy and support. Most profoundly, he had to face the harm he had caused Manuela and her mother. In a moment of incredible grace, Manuela's mother forgave him, telling him that as long as he took his medication and saw his doctor, they were "good." This forgiveness was a pivotal moment in his healing. Dunn learned that recovery wasn't just about medication; it was about building a support system, practicing rigorous self-awareness, and accepting that managing his mental health was a lifelong commitment. He came to understand that a sound mind is priceless, and the work required to maintain it is the most important investment he could ever make.

Narrator: The single most important takeaway from Am I Ok? is that vulnerability is not a liability but a prerequisite for true strength and healing. Andrew Dunn’s story dismantles the myth of the infallible entrepreneur, revealing that behind immense success can lie immense struggle. His journey demonstrates that acknowledging one's "ghosts"—whether they are trauma, addiction, or mental illness—is the first and most critical step toward building a life of authentic purpose and stability.

The book leaves us with a powerful challenge to the pervasive stigma surrounding mental health, especially in high-stakes environments like business and technology. Dunn’s story forces us to ask: how many brilliant minds are we losing because we’ve created a culture where it’s safer to suffer in silence than to ask for help? His journey is a testament to the fact that it is possible not only to survive a mental health crisis but to emerge from it with greater empathy, self-awareness, and a more profound understanding of what it truly means to be okay.