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One might think that fame and money bring happiness, but in fact, the celebrity lifestyle comes with a lot of risk factors for depression: substance abuse, sleep disruption, highly variable work schedules, and periods of unemployment, as well as intense public scrutiny and its associated guilt, shame, and insecurity. Many celebrities have shared their struggles with depression. Here are a few.
Stefani Germanotta (Lady Gaga)Stefani
revealed her struggles with PTSD, dissociation, depression, anxiety, and somatization on her
Born This Way Foundation's website back in 2016. The foundation focuses on mental wellness in young people by encouraging open dialogue about mental illness, aggregating resources that can provide help, and sharing tips about self-care.
In the video below (
full version -
I recommend it), Stefani says that she invented the Lady Gaga persona to express her pain and help her overcome her depression by living as someone she felt was stronger than she was. As her career took off, though, she realized that nothing could fix the inherent genetic component or the internal strife; instead, she had to turn inward. Now, she takes antidepressants and her doctor advises that she does not try to go off them as it becomes dangerous. She has also tried many other things to augment the medication: ayurvedic medicine, mindfulness and meditation, having a mantra, creative pursuits, acupuncture, cupping, prayer, learning to say "no" and curate her life how she pleased, and listening to herself.
Kristen BellIn the
following interview, Kristen discusses misconceptions about her based on her public life.
She has a strong family history of depression, with her grandmother being one of the first subjects of experimental electroshock therapy due to the severity of her disorder. Her mother, a nurse, opened a dialogue about it early on to warn her about what she might start to feel ("...you are twisting the world around you, there is no sunlight, you are paralyzed by fear...") and to lay out options for help. Because of that, Kristen did get on medication for her own depression early in life
and worked on developing coping skills like introspection, self-awareness, and exercise.
Dwayne JohnsonDwayne
talked just this month about his family history of depression, which he began to struggle with himself after seeing his mother attempt suicide when he was a teen [
note: he says both he and his mother have since healed from this incident].
In a
short interview for Oprah's Master Class series, Dwayne talks about feeling alone during another bout of depression triggered by the end of his football career. In the moment, he felt isolated; after the fact, he realized that he was neither the first nor the last to go through it, and wishes that someone had been there to remind him of that in the midst of the darkness.
He emphasizes having faith that there is something on the other side of your pain, as well as opening up to others about what you are feeling. "Depression never discriminates," he says. “Took me a long time to realize it but the key is to not be afraid to open up. Especially us dudes have a tendency to keep it in. You’re not alone.”
Cara DelevingneThough Cara had an upper-class childhood, it was not an easy one: her mother struggled (and still does) with heroin addiction. At 15, she was struck by a sudden depression, accompanied by anxiety and self-hatred that drove her to self-harm. She says, "I just wanted to dematerialize and have someone sweep me away.” She was put on a variety of medications, but none seemed to help. Instead, her mental illness caused her to fixate on her luck in life and berate herself for wanting out of it. She dropped out of school and followed her sister's footsteps into the modeling world, where it took a couple of years to find success.
While modeling, she began to experience negative physical symptoms of the stress such as passing out on set and developing psoriasis. After a short break, she came back to NYC and tried to distract herself from the depression with partying--drugs, yes, but mostly people: “The life of the party is an easy part for me to play. It rots your insides, though.”
She talks about feeling suicidal and debating whether she loved herself more than she loved the idea of death. A song that had been played at the recent funeral of a friend lost to addiction came on unexpectedly and pulled her out of the moment, keeping her alive.
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Video.
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