
Anxiety and depression, you are not alone
Mental-health issues are very serious, yet it’s still a tabu topic and lots of people are ashamed to talk about it. In today’s society people who are struggling with depression or anxiety are perceived as weak or unstable, however the truth is that almost every single one of us has been dealing with this kind of problems at least once in their lifetime.
How can we change this situation? How can we create a safe space for our friends, family members, anyone who is facing any kind of mental-health issues, so they can talk about it openly? How can we show people that being vulnerable is a human thing. In today’s article, we are sharing the experience and advices from very well-known women, who from the outside seem to have it all, yet they were still struggling with depression and anxiety.
Kate Moss – model
“I had a nervous breakdown when I was 17 or 18, when I had to go and work with Marky Mark and Herb Ritts. It didn’t feel like me at all. I felt really bad about straddling this buff guy. I didn’t like it. I couldn’t get out of bed for two weeks. I thought I was going to die. I went to the doctor, and he said, ‘I’ll give you some Valium,’ and Francesca Sorrenti, thank God, said, ‘You’re not taking that.’ It was just anxiety. Nobody takes care of you mentally. There’s a massive pressure to do what you have to do. I was really little, and I was going to work with Steven Meisel. It was just really weird — a stretch limo coming to pick you up from work. I didn’t like it. But it was work, and I had to do it.” – Vanity Fair, October 2012
Miley Cyrus – singer and actress
“Because people don’t know how to talk about being depressed — that it’s totally okay to feel sad. I went through a time where I was really depressed. Like, I locked myself in my room and my dad had to break my door down. It was a lot to do with, like, I had really bad skin, and I felt really bullied because of that. But I never was depressed because of the way someone else made me feel, I just was depressed. And every person can benefit from talking to somebody.” – Elle, April 2014
Cara Delevingne – model
“This is something I haven’t been open about, but it’s a huge part of who I am. All of a sudden I was hit with a massive wave of depression and anxiety and self-hatred, where the feelings were so painful that I would slam my head against a tree to try to knock myself out. I never cut, but I’d scratch myself to the point of bleeding. I just wanted to dematerialize and have someone sweep me away …” – Vogue, July 2015
Chrissy Teigen – model and television personality
“I had everything I needed to be happy. And yet, for much of the last year, I felt unhappy. What basically everyone around me — but me — knew up until December was this: I have postpartum depression. How can I feel this way when everything is so great? … Before, when I entered a room I had a presence: head high, shoulders back, big smile. Suddenly I had become this person whose shoulders would cower underneath her chin. I would keep my hands on my belly and try to make myself as small as possible.” – Glamour, March 2017
Zendaya – actress and singer
“I used to struggle with anxiety pretty bad. It only happened when I sang live, not when I danced or did any other live performances, and it stemmed from a bad experience I had while singing on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2013. It wasn’t my best performance, and I’ve never let myself live that down. I had mad anxiety ever since that … I did figure out how to bury my anxiety, though. I’ve tried focusing my energy on other things, like making movies. And I took my time and slowly built my confidence back up before I went back out onstage to sing live,” she wrote. “Luckily, when I performed ‘Let Me Love You’ with Mario on the show Greatest Hits last year, it went really well. It was still a little nerve-racking, but it was cool. Sometimes you just have to take a step back so things stop stressin’ you.” – on her app, February 2017
Ariana Grande – singer
“I’m a person who’s been through a lot and doesn’t know what to say about any of it to myself, let alone the world. I see myself onstage as this perfectly polished, great-at-my-job entertainer, and then in situations like this I’m just this little basket-case puddle of figuring it out. I have to be the luckiest girl in the world, and the unluckiest, for sure. I’m walking this fine line between healing myself and not letting the things that I’ve gone through be picked at before I’m ready, and also celebrating the beautiful things that have happened in my life and not feeling scared that they’ll be taken away from me because trauma tells me that they will be, you know what I mean?” – Vogue, July 2019
As you can see, many people are suffering from depression and anxiety every year. These mental health issues can have a huge impact on your personal life, relationships and work, that’s why it’s important to reach out for help and take the right steps to manage your health.