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Lady Gaga Talks Psychosis and Reaffirms What I Fear About Mental Illness
Speaking up is even scarier than wearing that meat dress
Lady Gaga, née Stefani Germanotta, recently told Buzzfeed she’s experienced psychosis.
I’m a huge fan of Lady Gaga and will support her in however much she discloses. However, as a woman with a serious mental illness, I hope one day she’ll feel like sharing more.
Ms. Germanotta has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from a sexual assault (per Oprah Daily) and had a psychotic break in 2020. These are brave things to share with the world. However, while she has said a bit about the context for her dissociative episodes, the singer didn’t offer specifics. She did not elaborate as to whether she has another underlying condition — nor did she say much about what her psychotic break felt like, in her own words, or what it meant for her.
The vagueness is Gaga’s prerogative, of course. And maybe for her, it is the best choice to give just the headlines — at least, for now. Nobody truly owes others sensitive information on their body, let alone the whole world.
Still, it’s a missed chance to de-shamify mental illness — and an even bigger missed chance for us to empathize with each other at…
