From Jolie to DiCaprio: history of stars with mental disabilities

Photo: depositphotos.com

Every year in October is World Mental Health Day. One of his many goals is to help the public learn more about so-called borderline mental disorders: depression, phobias, and neuroses. In many countries, such diseases are still stigmatized, considered to be something like a whim, and are actively hiding from others by the patients themselves. As a treatment, well-wishers often advise the sufferers to “pull themselves together”, and those, in turn, do not dare to admit the problem and go to the doctors.

"Lenta.ru" collected the history of world celebrities who told the public about their own experience in dealing with such illnesses.

Depression: melancholic killer

In the US, about 19 million people are treated for depression every year. Despite his fame and financial well-being, Hollywood stars are well acquainted with depression: the disease does not choose, is a person rich or poor, famous or not.

Actor Jim Carrey, for example, although he has built his entire career on the ability to amuse people, knows very well what a pathological spleen is. She pursued him over the years. Jim believes that the whole thing is in a difficult childhood with a sick mother and an unemployed father: such a life left an imprint of eternal sadness in the soul.

Celebrities, even more than mere mortals, tend to feel guilty about their depression. “I felt I had no right to complain. I'm so successful, I'm so lucky, ”admits actress Winona Ryder. She learned what depression is in her youth, parting with her first love - Johnny Depp. When the whole world considered her the favorite of fortune, she hardly forced herself to leave the house. By the way, Depp also mentioned in his interview about his own struggle with depression at different periods of his life, but he preferred not to go into details.

Before becoming a world-famous writer, JK Rowling divorced her husband. Left alone, with no means of subsistence, with a child in her arms, she plunged into depression so deeply that she thought about suicide. Rowling often recalls those dark times, but does not blame himself.

But actress Halley Berry fell into depression and thought about suicide after the first divorce in 1996. She even began to carry out her plan: she sat down in a car in the garage, started the engine and closed all the windows to suffocate from the exhaust gases. But she remembered her mother and how much she had spent on raising her daughter, and was horrified by her own idea. The star has chosen the path of psychotherapy and drug treatment of depression.

Like ordinary people, celebrities suffer from depression after the death of loved ones. Rapper Kanye West learned what suicidal thoughts are after his mother died in 2007. When in 2008, the prolonged oncological disease took the mother of Angelina Jolie, the actress fell into a severe pathological apathy. “I could not get up in the morning and felt as if I were in a kind of dark, gloomy place,” she recalled later.

When panic covers

Many healthy people tend to look for adrenaline while engaging in extreme sports, but the lives of those who are familiar with the concept of “panic attack,” and so is a continuous roller coaster. Some uncontrollable bouts of extreme fear occur after suffering stress and in strictly defined circumstances, while for others they become thunder out of the blue sky.

In the US, about 40 of millions of adults suffer from various forms of anxiety-panic disorders. They know that heart palpitations, dizziness, feeling short of breath and incessant anxious thoughts can make life absolutely unbearable.

Actress Amanda Seyfried regularly visits a psychotherapist who teaches her how to cope with panic attacks. Progress, according to the star, is evident, but it is not yet possible to completely overcome the anomalous fears. Especially unhelpful disturbing thoughts coming from nowhere prevent it: “I think and analyze too much. Suddenly I start to worry for my parents or for a dog. Or imagine that I can open the window and fall out of it, ”admitted Amanda.

Actress Lena Dunham also suffers from panic attacks and obsessive black thoughts. “Once I thought: here, in 2, I will be 30, then in 10 years - 40, then 50. I could not sleep all night, ”Lena said in an interview. How does she cope? He says that people with borderline mental disorders definitely need physical exertion.

“I know it infuriates when you are advised to play sports. It took me 16 years to listen to the advice, before that I just drank the medicine. Do it not for the sake of your ass, but for the sake of the brain, ”says Dunham about fitness.

Other stars who struggle with anxiety and panic disorders include the singer Rita Ora, Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, actress Emma Stone, actor Johnny Depp.

Bipolar disorder, manic depression — approximately 10 of millions of Americans live with this diagnosis. In this disease, the phases of a strong emotional recovery, not familiar to healthy people, are replaced by depression and fatigue.

Actress and singer Demi Lovato did not know that she had bipolar disorder until she was hospitalized in a rehabilitation center due to anorexia and the desire to cause physical injuries to herself.

“I didn’t understand what was wrong with me, although I had been depressed since childhood. I didn’t tell anyone what I feel, I was engaged in self-treatment, ”she admits. According to the star, now, after treatment, she is much better, and the doctors' explanations help her to control her condition.

Manic depression was also diagnosed in actress Catherine Zeta-Jones. After marrying Michael Douglas and playing in the hit "Zorro", Catherine was a model of the Hollywood celestial being. But in 2011, she had to go to the clinic, because it was impossible to cope on her own with painful mood swings. Zeta-Jones - one of those stars who from the first days did not hide mental illness from the press.

Jean-Claude Van Damme, the embodiment of strength and endurance on the screen, in life is not so invulnerable ... 4 divorce, drug addiction. The stars of “Bloody Sport” and “Universal Soldier” developed bipolar disorder, and he had to start taking medicines.

Agoraphobia: do not leave the room ...

Depression and anxiety disorders are often accompanied by phobias, such as claustrophobia (fear of confined spaces) and agoraphobia (fear of open spaces). In the second case, fears can force a person to constantly stay at home. It happened to actress Kim Basinger when her career was at the zenith and the fans did not doubt that there was no more beautiful and successful woman in the world. The first panic attack hit her like snow on her head when the star of the movie “9 ½ weeks” was shopping at the supermarket. Attacks were repeated and were so heavy that Beysinger was afraid to go out. She developed both agoraphobia and depression. The actress asked for help from a psychotherapist.

Social phobia: who are all these people?

Social phobia is a stubborn, irrational fear of any public activity, of any approach to people. It seems to patients that every passer-by on the street looks at them appreciatively. It seems that celebrities who are used to attention should be insured against such a misfortune. But it is not: social phobia, for example, overcomes the singer Adele before each appearance on the stage. Fear of public speaking has developed in her long before fame, and the scene did not help.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder

This cider is characterized by obsessive thoughts. It is possible to get rid of the alarm caused by them only by performing certain “ritual” actions. For example, OCD football player David Beckham is connected with the order: all things in the house must lie in pairs, odd numbers give him discomfort. The athlete constantly shifts items in hotel rooms, where he stops: only by placing brochures, towels and other things in the order he needs, he can relax.

Leonardo DiCaprio has been suffering from OCD since childhood. He can not safely walk on the sidewalk - for peace of mind he needs to step on each crack and chewing gum.

"I remember being late for a meeting at 10 minutes, because I missed some kind of crack or gum and was forced to go back," Leo admitted. Symptoms of the disease aggravated when the actor played Howard Hughes in the movie "Aviator" - his hero suffered from strong OCD, and Di Caprio got into the image ...

Aerophobia: the crew says goodbye to you ...

One of the most common phobias does not give rest to many celebrities. Neither first-class flights nor their own jets help: heavens cause bouts of cruel fear to many. Actress Whoopi Goldberg admitted to 2011 that she hadn’t stepped on a 30 plane for years. The program for aerophobes developed by psychotherapists helped her part with buses and trains.

All the stars, on their own experience who know what mental illness is, have one thing in common: they received medical help. Many of them deliberately told their stories to the press, so that others would not be ashamed of their illness and understand: no medical problem can and should not be considered shameful.

Read also on ForumDaily:

For which Bob Dylan received the Nobel Prize in literature

Hollywood star first told about childhood in the Soviet Union

Mother of ex-girlfriend Jim Carrey accused the actor of her daughter's death