Bella Hadid has always been forthcoming about her battle with anxiety and depression. But this morning, the supermodel got more candid than ever before on Instagram, sharing a series of selfies of herself crying along with an empowering message in response to Willow Smith opening up about her own mental health battles during a video interview. “I love you and your words,” writes Hadid. “It made me feel a little less alone and that’s why I’d like to post this.”
View this post on Instagram
Inviting her 47 million followers into her innermost fears and feelings, Hadid then hones in on the façade of social media and the psychological effects many of us experience collectively—even though we might feel alone. “Social media is not real,” she writes. “For anyone struggling, please remember that. Sometimes all you’ve gotta hear is that you’re not alone. So from me to you, you’re not alone. I love you, I see you, and I hear you.”
Hadid goes on to emphasise that when it comes to mental health, no two battles are the same and it’s an ongoing struggle. “Self-help and mental illness/chemical imbalance is not linear and it is almost like a flowing rollercoaster of obstacles…it has its ups and downs, and side to sides,” she explains. “But I want you to know, there is always light at the end of the tunnel, and the rollercoaster always comes to a complete stop at some point.” She also notes that while feelings of sadness and helplessness can always start up again, it’s helpful to know that they ebb and flow by nature, which helps bring her solace that “even if it’s a few days, weeks, or months, it does get better.”
“It took me a long time to get that in my mind, but I’ve had enough breakdowns and burnouts to know this,” she continues, “if you work hard enough on yourself, spending time alone to understand your traumas, triggers, joys, and routine, you will always be able to understand or learn more about your own pain and how to handle it Which is all that you can ask of yourself.”
According to the Anxiety & Depression Association of America, anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting 40 million adults in the U.S. age 18 and older. These rates have climbed amid the ongoing global pandemic, with the CDC reporting that from August 2020 to February 2021, the percentage of adults with recent symptoms of anxiety or depression increased from 36.4% to 41.5%. Another nuance that Hadid inherently brings to the fore is the connection between mental health and chronic illness. In 2016, Hadid revealed that she suffers from Lyme disease, a tick-borne illness with symptoms, including fatigue and muscle pain, that can significantly impact a patient’s quality of life. It’s widely known that depression is one of the most common complications of chronic illness, and it’s estimated that up to one-third of people with a serious medical condition have symptoms of depression.
While there will always be contention around celebrities and their privilege, there’s no denying that when stars like Hadid open up about their mental health struggles, it raises much-needed awareness around the pervasiveness of these issues, and the resources available to help cope and get the right care. “One of the most important things, I think, is to destigmatise all mental health issues, particularly anxiety, because a lot of people think they’re alone with it,” Los Angeles–based clinical psychologist Dr. Ramani Durvasula told Kendall Jenner as part of Open Minded, Vogue’s four-part series exploring anxiety and how the mental condition can impact everyday life. “Anxiety is like a magnifying glass. It magnifies only the bad things—every little ping, every little this…. In essence, what we’re trying to do is take that magnifying glass and put it to being a regular lens.”
In advocating for us as a society to be more transparent about our inner battles and work towards better mental health, Hadid continues to empower her millions of fans and beyond. As Willow Smith put it in the comments, “Your honesty and tenderness heals so many.”
This story originally appeared in Vogue.com
