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From the archive: A post from 2016
It is now well known that Lady Gaga is committed to healing the mentally ill. Now the singer also talked about her own mental limitations during an interview in New York. Specifically, this is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Two years ago, Lady Gaga reported that she was raped at the age of 19 by a man who was 20 years older than her.
“I’ve never told anyone this before”
In an interview with NBC on Monday, Lady Gaga spoke about her visit to a shelter for homeless LGBT youth. And said: “I told the kids today that I suffer from a mental disorder. I have post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD. I’ve never told anyone about that before. But now it’s out. But all the love and care that I received from doctors as well as from my family and friends saved my life.”
Every day is a fight
Lady Gaga’s surprise visit didn’t just include an appearance. But also her moving speech, which was intended to support and encourage young people: “Yes, I have a mental illness. And I struggle with it every day. But I also say to myself every day: ‘You are brave, and you are courageous'”. In the interview she also reported: “These children are not only homeless or needy. Many of them are also traumatized and have been rejected in a variety of ways. My own trauma has helped me to understand others better. It is incredibly important to remind these traumatized children that they are loved and that they are not alone. We are walking this path together.” LGBT stands for Lesbian, Gay, bisexual and Transgender. People who strive for self-realization and are often discriminated against.
“I thought adults were like that”
Lady Gaga, now 28, first spoke about her rape and PTSD at age 19 on Howard Stern’s radio show two years ago: “I went to Catholic school and then all this crazy stuff happened and I was like, ‘Okay, so that’s what adults do?’ I was incredibly naive.
“This happens to people every day, which is very frightening and extremely sad.” Gaga initially repressed her own experience until the effects began to show four or five years later; Still, she didn’t confide in anyone for over seven years. “I was so traumatized that I thought, ‘Just move on.’ Because I had to get out of there somehow. Only later did I realize that it was totally crazy. The guy was 20 years older than me, I was a kid.”
Many mental illnesses come on gradually
The song “Swine” from her penultimate album “Artpop” is also about rape, as she revealed in the interview: “The song is about anger, rage and passion, I had a lot of pain inside me that just had to be let out.”
Back in November 2015, Lady Gaga once spoke about the rape and PTSD, which “completely changed who I was. It changed my body, my thoughts. When you go through a trauma like that, you don’t just suffer the immediate physical injuries; because the emotional injuries often only show up years later.”
