Lady Gaga wants people to speak up about their mental health because she believes “secrets keep you sick”.
The 32-year-old musician has admitted that whilst she “struggled” for a long while when it came to speaking publicly about her struggles with mental health, she admits she felt better once she had someone to confide in, and says keeping her battle to herself only made her problems worse.
She said: “I have struggled for a long time, both being public and not public about my mental health issues or my mental illness. But, I truly believe that secrets keep you sick.”
Gaga spoke as she honoured her mother Cynthia Germanotta, with the Global Changemakers Award at Children Mending Hearts’ Empathy, Rocks fundraiser over the weekend, and said that whilst she realises it’s “safer” for her to speak out now that she’s a star, she hopes her work with the charity will help other people come forward too.
She added: “I realize that it’s actually safer to say how I feel. What Children Mending Hearts is doing today rocks because it’s safer for others who feel like me.”
The ‘Million Reasons’ singer also highlighted the importance of having “real honest conversations” about mental health and urged everyone to put more “kindness” into the world.
She said: “We bring people together to have real, honest conversations and to be kind. Kindness is not an afterthought to our work. It is the driving power for everything we do. It is the lens we view every challenge through. It is framing the way we put everything around every possible solution. To me, almost every problem you can think of can be solved with kindness. At least it could be made better. ”
“Kindness has a soft undertone. Sometimes people think it is weak. It is tremendously powerful. It can change the way that we view each other. The way that we view our communities and the way that we work. Even the way that we feel about ourselves, by being kinder to ourselves. We need more kindness in the world.”
