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Lady Gaga Opens Up about Her Mental Health Struggles


Tue 22 Sep 2020 | 01:35 PM
Yara Sameh

Lady Gaga opened up about her mental health struggle and how daunting fame can be in an interview with "CBS Sunday Morning" that aired this weekend.

“I totally gave up on myself. I hated being famous, I hated being a star, I felt exhausted and used up,” she stated.

Gaga added: “You cannot go to the grocery store now. If you go to dinner with your family, somebody comes to the table. You cannot have dinner with your family without it being about you, it is always about you. All the time it's about you. And your outfits—look at your outfits. Why you gotta be like that?”

“My biggest enemy is Lady Gaga, that is what I was thinking — my biggest enemy is her. What did you do?" the musician continued.

Around the time Gaga’s 2016’s “Joanne” was released, things took a turn for the worst.

"It is not always easy if you have mental issues to let other people see. I used to show, I used to self-harm, I used to say, ‘Look I cut myself, see I’m hurting.’ Because I did not think anyone could see — because mental health, it is invisible."

She considered suicide every day, the musician revealed.

"I did not really understand why I should live other than to be there for my family. That was an actual real thought and feeling: Why should I stick around?" ," Gaga said.

She confessed that things got so bad that she lived in a house while people watched over her for a couple of years, to make sure that she was safe.

Gaga stated that is still triggered by being "objectified," like when people shove cell phones at her to take photos or she cannot dine out with her family.

As for quitting the whole music and fame game, she says it wasn't an option.

“I swear on my future unborn children, I do not know why, but I have to. Turns out, even if I do not want to be alive, I still know how to write a song.”

Thankfully, things are looking far better now, said the singer who is promoting her latest album, "Chromatica."

“I do not hate Lady Gaga anymore. I found a way to love myself again, even when I thought that was never going to happen."

You can watch the full interview here.

[caption id="attachment_129188" align="aligncenter" width="681"]Lady Gaga Lady Gaga[/caption]

In May, Lady Gaga talked about how making “Chromatica” helped her to heal from past trauma.

In a revealing new interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Gaga delved into her struggles with mental health and how they played into the album’s artistic process.

She described the album as a journey through pain toward healing and hopes to encourage those who are also suffering to view it as a sign of their own humanity and forgive themselves, as well.

“Chromatica,” is Gaga’s first album since “Joanne”.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="1280"]Lady Gaga at SAG-AFTRA Foundation Lady Gaga at SAG-AFTRA Foundation[/caption]

In 2018, the musician got candid about her “mental health crisis” that prompted her to seek professional help after becoming overwhelmed by work commitments.

The “Star Is Born” actress called on Hollywood to provide better mental health care for people in the entertainment business, in her patron award acceptance speech at the SAG-AFTRA Foundation’s third annual Patron of the Artists Awards in Beverly Hills, on November 8, 2018.

She noted that she began to notice that she would stare off into space and blackout for seconds or minutes,

“I would see flashes of things I was tormented by, experiences that were filed away in my brain with ‘I’ll deal with you later’ for many years because my brain was protecting me, as science teaches us. These were also symptoms of disassociation and PTSD and I did not have a team that included mental health support.” Gaga recalled.

She explained that her struggles had later morphed into physical chronic pain, fibromyalgia, panic attacks, acute trauma responses, and debilitating mental spirals that have included suicidal ideation, and masochistic behavior.