Bella Hadid Shares How She Copes With Mental Health Struggles

 

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Bella Hadid is getting candid about her mental health struggles, opening up about them in a recent interview and sharing how she copes with them: both on the good and the bad days.

Speaking with WSJ. Magazine, Bella said: “I do have good days. Today is a good day. My brain fog is feeling better, I don’t feel depressed. I don’t have as much anxiety as I usually do. But tomorrow I could wake up and [be] the complete opposite. That’s why I get so overwhelmed.”

Bella then went on to say that one thing she finds helps her a lot is expressing gratitude each day: “Every morning, [I write] three pages, journaling,” she added.

“What’s important for me is to have that ritual and have that moment to myself. I try to do a gratitude meditation every morning. If it’s on my way to work, I usually put it on in the car, on the loudspeaker, so whoever’s driving me and I have a nice moment of gratitude together.”

 

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During the past few years, Bella explained that during her most depressive episodes she would find it hard to articulate how she was feeling, and used photos to express her emotions instead.

“I would have really depressive episodes and my mom or my doctor would ask how I was and instead of having to respond in text, I would just send them a photo,” she said. “It was the easiest thing for me to do at the time because I was never able to explain how I was feeling. I would just be in excruciating and debilitating mental and physical pain, and I didn’t know why.”

Alongside that, with the attempt to be more open and honest with her followers, Bella also decided to share these photos online to resonate with anyone who may be feeling the same way.

 

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“[When I posted them] it was to make sure that anybody that was feeling that way knew it was OK to feel that way,” she said. “I felt like it was just good for me to be able to speak my truth and at some point, I wasn’t able to post nice pretty pictures anymore. I was over it.”

She then added: “I had a lot of people that have reached out saying, ‘I feel that way too.’ Walking outside, being able to remember there are so many people going through things and have similar patterns to me, it makes me feel better.

“I feel like real is the new real, and that’s what’s important to me.”

• Bella Hadid
• mental health