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Tag: celebs & mental health

  • Gina Rodriguez Stepped Away From "Jane The Virgin" To Focus On Mental Health

    Gina Rodriguez Stepped Away From "Jane The Virgin" To Focus On Mental Health

    Rodriguez said she had to advocate for herself to protect her mental health.

    Actress Gina Rodriguez recently expanded on her experience with depression and anxiety, and how she was finally able to advocate for her own mental health by stepping away from filming Jane the Virgin.

    During a conversation with NBC News’s Kate Snow at The Kennedy Forum in Chicago, Rodriguez was prompted to speak about her personal battles when Snow’s husband Chris Bro shared his experience of losing his father to suicide.

    “I think I started dealing with depression around 16,” said Rodriguez. “I started dealing with the idea of—that same concept that I think your husband was talking about—(that) everything is going to be better when I’m gone. Life will be easier, all the woes will be away, all the problems. Then I wouldn’t have to fail or succeed, right? Then all this surmounting pressure would go away. It would just go away.”

    Snow remembered her father-in-law in a June 2018 essay on Today.com. “It’s been almost eight years now, but it’s still fresh. Not just for me, but my entire extended family.”

    Rodriguez said that after suffering a panic attack while filming the final season of Jane the Virgin, she had to take time away from set. She said it was the first time she was able to advocate for herself to protect her mental health. “There was a point where I couldn’t push through every single time anymore. It came to a point, this last season was the first season where I had to stop production. I just had a really tumultuous season and I was unafraid for the first time to be like, ‘I can’t.’”

    Growing up like many of us do, with no outlet to express our feelings or struggles, Rodriguez said she is now learning how to express herself in this way, and says she is hoping to pass on this important lesson to young people through speaking up about it herself. “It has to be a part of the conversation I have with these young girls,” she said. “I can’t just tell them to go out and make their dreams come true and then to ignore everything else.”

    The actress—who is the voice of Carmen Sandiego in the new Netflix animated series—revealed in 2017 that she is struggling just like anybody else with depression and anxiety.

    As part of artist Anton Soggiu’s #TenSecondPortraits project, Rodriguez posed for the camera for a 10-second shot. She wrote in the caption, “I suffer from anxiety. And watching this clip I could see how anxious I was, but I empathize with myself. I wanted to protect her and tell her it’s okay to be anxious, there is nothing different or strange about having anxiety and I will prevail.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Chris Cornell’s Daughter Explains Decision To Take Mental Health Break From College

    Chris Cornell’s Daughter Explains Decision To Take Mental Health Break From College

    The late rock star’s daughter noted that it is always important to take care of your mental health.

    Lily Cornell Silver, the daughter of late rock star Chris Cornell, took to Instagram on Thursday to reveal that she is taking a break from college for the sake of her mental and emotional health.

    “I did not ‘drop out of college’ (although it shouldn’t matter if I did),” she wrote on her Instagram story. “I took a temporary leave of absence to tend to my mental and emotional health, which was in part damaged by those who are gossiping about me.”

    Cornell Silver took the opportunity to rebuke those who would criticize her for the move, saying such people are part of the reason mental health continues to be a pressing issue.

    “Think twice before you judge somebody for experiencing anxiety, depression, trauma, grief, etc., and taking a step back to practise self-care as opposed to forcing themselves through it,” she urged.

    She also blasted people who thought she was simply making an excuse for slacking off. “Mental health and education are two things I take very seriously, which happens to be how I graduated with a 4.0. Nice try tho,” she rebuked.

    The subject of mental health is likely a tender one to Cornell Silver as her own father died by suicide. He battled both addiction and depression for years before his death in 2017.

    His widow, Vicky Cornell, said that he did not seem depressed or suicidal prior to that night in Detroit. “When we spoke before the show, we discussed plans for a vacation over Memorial Day,” Vicky wrote in a statement.

    Vicky, noting that Chris had taken extra Ativan that night, suggested the mood-altering drug was to blame.

    “Approximately a year before he died, he was prescribed a benzodiazepine to help him sleep,” she said. “He had torn his shoulder. The pain in the shoulder was waking him up at night and it was keeping him up.”

    Cornell’s family eventually sued Dr. Robert Koblin for “negligently and repeatedly [prescribing] mind-altering drugs and controlled substances.” 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Sophie Turner Talks Mental Health & "Dark Phoenix"

    Sophie Turner Talks Mental Health & "Dark Phoenix"

    The Game of Thrones actress has been open about her struggles with depression in the past. 

    Sophie Turner from Game of Thrones plays Jean Grey in the new X-Men film Dark Phoenix. In researching the role, Turner spent nine months taking an extensive look into mental illness to prepare.

    As Us Weekly reports, Simon Kinberg, the director of Dark Phoenix, sat down with Turner and told her, “Look. This is the story. You know it from the comics. I need you to fully inhabit this sense of losing control, losing your sanity. I need it to feel real… I sent her books, articles and videos about people suffering from schizophrenia, dissociative identity disorder, multiple personality disorder.”

    In preparing for the role, Turner walked around London and New York, wearing earphones, listening to recorded voices to try and understand what it would be like to live with schizophrenia.

    As Turner told Glamour, “When Simon told me about the plot, we decided the things Jean was going through were not unlike schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder. And so we sent each other documents back and forth—essays, documentaries, all sorts of videos. We really got into it… How the situation affects the X-Men and the people around her is not unlike how addiction affects the people around that person. So we delved into studying those particular subjects.”

    “Sophie knew some people that had struggled with similar types of mental health issues,” Kinberg said. “So we would just talk it through and try to find a way for everything in this movie that is supernatural and fantastical to be grounded in something real.”

    James McAvoy, who plays Professor Charles Xavier, also told Glamour, “I was excited that mental health was such a massive part of the exploration of the character. It’s about somebody’s mental health, but also a family trying to deal with it.”

    Tye Sheridan, who plays Cyclops, added, “I think it’s important, especially in superhero movies, to portray these characters with real problems. I think a lot of people look up to a superhero. You want, as a fan or as someone watching these movies, to believe that you could be like that person… It allows you to believe in growth and the betterment of your person.”

    As it turns out, Turner has had her own mental health struggles as well. She recently revealed to Dr. Phil, “I’ve suffered with depression for about five or six years now, and the biggest challenge for me is just getting out of bed, getting out of the house and learning to love yourself.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Taraji Henson Takes Her Mental Health Advocacy To Capitol Hill

    Taraji Henson Takes Her Mental Health Advocacy To Capitol Hill

    The Academy Award-nominated actress says the lack of discussion and confrontation around mental health is dangerous. 

    On Friday (June 7), actress and mental health advocate Taraji P. Henson spent time on Capitol Hill speaking to members of the Black Caucus and encouraging them to join in the conversation about mental health. 

    Henson, the founder of the Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation and Empire star, tells People that the lack of discussion and confrontation around mental health is dangerous. 

    “The suicide rate has taken off,” Henson told People. “It amazes me that 5-year-olds are contemplating suicide. That’s a word you shouldn’t even understand at five years old.”

    Henson added, “We don’t talk about mental health, we don’t deal with it. For generations, we’ve been told it’s a weakness, to pray our problems away—and that’s just not gonna cut it.”

    On Friday, Henson also spent time talking to reporters and interacting with guests at a benefit dinner held prior to a conference called “Can We Talk,” which focused on mental health in the black community. 

    “I felt that if a face or a personality you could trust would come forward to say, ‘Hey, you know, I suffered too—that would make others feel safe. I’ve had a few friends call me and say, ‘Bravo, thank you so much, you have no idea what I go through,’” she told People.

    Henson says that she supports the idea of mental health being taught in schools. That way children are aware of it, but parents would also be encouraged to discuss it with their children more often.  

    “If we can teach children about sex education and physical education, why not mental?” she said. “That’s where we start attacking this issue: with the children.”

    Earlier this year, Henson opened up about her own struggles with depression and anxiety, as well as the mental health challenges facing the black community. 

    Henson began her own foundation in memory of her father, who struggled with PTSD and manic depression. Her father died in 2005, shortly after the father of her son was murdered in Washington, D.C. It was then that Henson began to search for a therapist. 

    “It was like looking for a purple unicorn with a 24-karat-gold horn,” she tells People. “I say that jokingly, but it’s serious. The reason why we don’t have many psychiatrists of color, or psychologists of color, or therapists of color, is because we don’t talk about it at home.”

    Henson says she now talks to her therapist about twice a week, sometimes with her fiancé. 

    “I want people to know it’s okay,” Henson said. “I don’t know what human is not suffering from some sort of anxiety or depression.”

    In the end, it’s OK to struggle, Henson says. She encourages people to reach out and ask for help. 

    “It’s okay not to be okay,” she said. “Just talk about it.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Robin Williams’ Son Opens Up About Grieving, Suicide For New Campaign

    Robin Williams’ Son Opens Up About Grieving, Suicide For New Campaign

    The legendary entertainer’s son opened up about focusing on his own healing since losing his father as part of an awareness campaign.

    Robin Williams’ oldest son, Zak Williams, is speaking out about his grief and moving on after suicide as part of a campaign to support people who have had a loved one take their own life. 

    Williams, 36, appears on the Instagram page for FacesOfFortitude. 

    “There’s no education in place to tell you how to deal with this,” Williams said in the first post. “To balance how to grieve privately with your family and then also to have to grieve publicly. While it was nice to be heard, I was spending time on the outer layer instead of on the inside. It wasn’t just the survivor network for me, it was the whole world.”

    Robin Williams took his own life in August 2014 at the age of 63. In addition to Zak, Williams left behind two other children, Cody and Zelda, who are younger than Zak. 

    In another post, Zak talked about how he has had to focus on his own healing over the past few years. 

    “I started to feel bad for myself, I was seeking solace and healing through my grieving,” he said. “Once I took out all the inputs and elements of self medications, it all became really raw. It was super painful. I had to stop thinking big and expansive to heal everyone and look inward. I found a lot in there. I realized I wasn’t broken. There was a lot of strength I didn’t know was in there.”

    This isn’t the first time that Williams has spoken about his father’s death and their relationship. He told a biographer that is was difficult to watch his father’s well-being fade, according to Vanity Fair. 

    “It was really difficult to see someone suffering so silently,” he said. “But I think that there were a series of things that stacked, that led to an environment that he felt was one of pain, internal anguish, and one that he couldn’t get out of. And the challenge in engaging with him when he was in that mindset was that he could be soothed, but it’s really hard when you then go back into an environment of isolation. Isolation is not good for Dad and people like him. It’s actually terrible.”

    Williams also told the biographer that his father carried a lot of guilt about ending his marriage to the mother of his children, despite the fact that the kids told him he needed to move on. 

    “He couldn’t hear it. He could never hear it. And he wasn’t able to accept it,” Williams said. “He was firm in his conviction that he was letting us down. And that was sad because we all loved him so much and just wanted him to be happy.”

    Today, Williams serves on the board of Bring Change to Mind, an organization started by actress Glenn Close to reduce the stigma around mental illness. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Jessica Alba Attends Therapy With 10-Year-Old Daughter

    Jessica Alba Attends Therapy With 10-Year-Old Daughter

    Alba opened up about the importance of healthy communication with her daughter during a recent conference.

    Actress and entrepreneur Jessica Alba recently opened up about attending therapy with her 10-year-old daughter, Honor, to encourage healthy communication and to become a “better mother.”

    Alba was at Her Campus Media’s eighth annual Her Conference at Wanderlust Hollywood last Saturday (June 1), where she discussed women in the workplace, running The Honest Company which she co-founded in 2011, and growing up in Hollywood as a young actress with Mexican roots.

    The mother-of-three talked about going to therapy with her 10-year-old daughter, Honor Marie Warren, to “learn to be a better mother to her and communicate better with her.”

    This is a far different approach to how she was raised, she admits. 

    “I didn’t grow up in an environment where you talked about this stuff, and it was just like shut it down and keep it moving,” said Alba, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “So I find a lot of inspiration just in talking to my kids.”

    “Some people think, like in my family, you talk to a priest and that’s it. I don’t really feel comfortable talking to him about my feelings,” she said.

    Alba is often candid about her life, parenting style and approach to running her business.

    Last month, she revealed the impact that coming of age in Hollywood had on her. “I was meant to feel ashamed if I tempted men. Then I stopped eating a lot when I became an actress. I made myself look more like a boy so I wouldn’t get as much attention. I went through a big tomboy phase,” she said during a panel at the Goop Health summit in Los Angeles on May 18.

    Actresses Taraji P. Henson, Olivia Wilde and Busy Philipps also sat on the panel.

    Being a young woman in Hollywood, Alba became guarded and became insecure about her womanhood.

    “In Hollywood, you’re really preyed upon,” Alba said. “They see a young girl, and they just want to touch you inappropriately or talk to you inappropriately or think that they’re allowed to be aggressive with you in a way.”

    She continued, “So, then I like created this pretty intense ‘don’t f— with me’ [attitude]. I had to create a harder shell about being a woman.”

    Motherhood allowed her to stop being ashamed of her body, she said. “[After Honor was born] I was like, oh this is what these boobies are meant to do! Feed a kid! And that was the dopest s— I’d ever done. So, I came into my body as a woman finally and I stopped being ashamed of myself.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • "Even Stevens" Star Christy Carlson Romano Opens Up About Depression, Self Harm

    "Even Stevens" Star Christy Carlson Romano Opens Up About Depression, Self Harm

     “During a period of time in my life, I grappled with depression, drinking, and more, desperate to find fixes for how I felt.” 

    As a star on the Disney Channel hit shows Even Stevens and Kim Possible, Christy Carlson Romano came across as poised and polished—but really she was struggling with depression and tendencies toward self-harm. 

    “I am not a victim, but I have never been perfect or pulled together as my reputation or the successes of my young adulthood might suggest,” Romano wrote in an essay for Teen Vogue. “During a period of time in my life, I grappled with depression, drinking, and more, desperate to find fixes for how I felt.”

    Although Romano had career success at a very young age, she wasn’t able to experience a normal childhood, she wrote. That loss affected her social and emotional development, she said. 

    “While I was adept at change and very driven in my art form, I was delayed in some developmental milestones that one often has in their preteen years that adequately inform their early adulthood and help them make the right decisions during hard times,” she said. “I only learned to ride a bike at 12 years old because I had a callback for a cereal commercial. I had very few friends my own age and lacked the ability to communicate my emotions effectively due to my insecurities with being different. Needing to be liked was my full-time job and constant concern of mine.”

    After leaving Disney, Romano tried her hand at New York theater, where her mental health began to slip. 

    “I became a bit harder-edged, binge-drank more at loud nightclubs, and started to accept the transient natures of love, sex, and friendship,” she said. “Then I began to flirt with other methods of self-destruction. I tried to scratch my skin with my fingernail because I was too scared to use a knife. I chickened out and honestly felt like I had failed some important race to win the trophy for ‘most tragic, beautiful girl.’”

    When a so-called psychic approach Romano, the star formed a relationship with her, eventually paying $40,000 for a crystal that the psychic promised would change her life. 

    “I felt marked, used, and violated so I started to blame myself for everything instead of learning from my past mistakes and growing as a person,” she said. 

    After ten years, Romano said she got her life on track when she met her husband, with whom she now has two daughters. Today she is sober and has a more robust sense of purpose. 

    “I haven’t had a drink since before my first pregnancy and am going to continue to abstain from alcohol so that I can continue to make clear-headed decisions that keep me on the right path,” she wrote. 

    She’s now able to look back on her life and see where she went wrong, and she has some advice to share with others.  

    “Having a clear understanding of your personal value helps to positively shape everything you do. If you don’t, if you aren’t careful, you just might end up getting what everyone else wishes for but wondering what you want yourself.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Weezer, Pete Wentz Join #MyYoungerSelf Mental Health Campaign

    Weezer, Pete Wentz Join #MyYoungerSelf Mental Health Campaign

    Weezer, Pete Wentz from Fall Out Boy and producer/songwriter Butch Walker are the latest to create videos for the campaign.

    The Child’s Mind Institute’s annual #MyYoungerSelf campaign aims to raise mental health awareness by providing a platform where celebrities can get candid about overcoming their struggles, and share what they would tell their younger selves about their mental health journey today. 

    Members of the band Weezer, Pete Wentz from Fall Out Boy, and producer/songwriter Butch Walker are the latest to create videos for #MyYoungerSelf, in the hopes that young people will find comfort in their advice.

    As Rolling Stone reports, Weezer bassist Scott Shriner describes himself in his childhood years as “super sick, different and weird.” He was full of self-hatred and “scared of everything, [I] hid under the bed when it was time to go to school.”

    In the video, Shriner encourages young people to “find something that you really enjoy and just work really hard at it and know that you’re not alone and that you’re not always going to feel that way. If I knew then how I would turn out now, I probably could’ve relaxed a little bit… Find some of the weirdos like you to talk to.”

    Wentz also said, “It’s super normal to be unsure of yourself and feel lonely. One of the things I would have told myself 10 or 20 years ago is that it’s alright to feel that anxiety, it’s alright to feel down, but you’ve gotta know that tomorrow might have a different feeling.” He also said, “It’s important to know that you can reach out to people. Sometimes you start feeling like, ‘I’m feeling down, and I’ll just keep it to myself.’ I think it’s important to reach out to your friends.”

    Walker, who has worked with Fall Out Boy and Weezer, among other bands, recalled coming from a small town “and feeling different… it was a lot of people who were scared out of the box of being ‘normal’ and scared to like things that other people didn’t necessarily like or weren’t into. I gravitated toward doing things and loving things that a lot of my friends did not. And because of that I got made fun of a lot—ridiculed, teased, mocked.”

    Yet Walker today says, “I know I’m not alone,” and now his son also has to deal with being “different” at school.

    “I guess the bottom line here is I want to tell you, ‘Don’t be afraid to be different. Don’t be afraid to challenge yourself.’ Just love what you love, and be yourself because everyone else is taken.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Ayesha Curry, Willow Smith Open Up About Anxiety On "Red Table Talk"

    Ayesha Curry, Willow Smith Open Up About Anxiety On "Red Table Talk"

    Curry and Smith discussed how they manage their anxiety on the show’s latest episode.

    On the latest episode of Jada Pinkett Smith’s Facebook series Red Table Talk, Willow Smith opened up about her struggles with anxiety.

    The episode’s conversation was wide-ranging, but when the subject came to anxiety, Jada asked her daughter Willow, “What are some of the things that you do? What are some of your techniques to deal with your anxiety?”

    Willow responded, “Recently I have been, like, I just get really frustrated and I just feel like there is so much energy. I get frustrated and then in my head I feel manic.” So when anxiety hits, Willow says she “[drops] down” and starts doing push-ups.

    Chef Ayesha Curry, wife of NBA superstar Steph Curry who was a guest on the show, confessed that she suffers from anxiety as well. “I have anxiety too, really bad, to the point where I actually take medication for it. And I think it’s something that everybody, in some way, has moments. I think open communication and putting your feelings on the line, that helps me a lot, [and] just letting someone know, ‘I’m kind of having an anxiety attack now.’”

    Last year on Red Table Talk, Willow also opened up to her mother about practicing self-harm. She experienced fame at a young age with her debut single “Whip My Hair,” and she confessed, “I feel like I lost my sanity at one point. It was after that whole ‘Whip My Hair’ thing and I had just stopped doing singing lessons and I was kind of just in this gray area of, ‘Who am I? Do I have a purpose? Is there anything I can do besides this?’ And after all of that kind of settled down and it was like a kind of lull, I was listening to a lot of dark music. It was just so crazy, and I plunged into this black hole, and I was, like, cutting myself.”

    It was a secret she apparently kept from her mother, and Willow added, “I never talk about it because it was a short, weird point in my life. But you have to pull yourself out of it.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Goldie Hawn: Meditation Helped Me With Anxiety Attacks

    Goldie Hawn: Meditation Helped Me With Anxiety Attacks

    The actress opened up about the anxiety she’s faced since childhood and her goal of helping others conquer it.

    It’s a story that is becoming more familiar as mental health becomes a national conversation: actress Goldie Hawn might be an Academy award-winning actress, but she once struggled with anxiety.

    Hawn told her story at The Child Mind Institute‘s 5th Annual Change Maker Awards, where she won her Activist Award.

    “I lived with anxiety as a little girl,” said Hawn. “I thought the Russians were going to bomb us. I thought I could die without ever kissing a boy. I suffered anxiety every time I heard a siren.”

    Even as she spent more time in the spotlight, she would begin to have anxiety attacks. “The next thing I know I’m doing a TV show and I was having nonspecific anxiety attacks,” she explained. “I didn’t know why I was feeling anxious or what was wrong with me, when I would go into public and feeling like I could vomit. I didn’t know why I wanted to sit on a couch while I was supposedly becoming something that everyone was so excited for me.”

    Hawn soon realized she needed to take action.

    “I suffered for about a year…[then] I took charge and saw a doctor,” she told the audience. “But that was the time when I was 21 and I realized that I had a mind, that I was going to fix that mind and I was going to make sure I knew and understood everything that was happening and why it was happening.”

    Eventually, she found her key to happiness: meditation.

    “I went for meditation because it was the thing to do, and when I did, it was like I can’t ever explain to you—it was the most joyful experience I’ve ever had,” revealed Hawn. “I felt like I returned back to my deepest part, to my heart, to my joy. It just hit this seed of joy that I always had as a young girl. Because all I ever wanted to be was happy. That was my goal.”

    Hawn founded the MindUp program to help children deal with mental health issues through meditation, hopefully providing them with the tools that helped her find happiness.

    She felt concern because of the statistics that suggest suicide is the second-leading cause of death for people ages 10 to 24.

    View the original article at thefix.com