Lady Gaga Writes A Moving Essay About Her Struggle With PTSD

On Monday (December 5), Lady Gaga revealed that she suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) during a TODAY show segment for the #ShareKindness campaign. Now, she further delves into her struggle with mental illness in a open letter she penned on her Born This Way Foundation website. Titled “Head Stuck In A Cycle I Look Off And I Stare” (which is a lyric from her poignant ballad “Million Reasons”), she notes: “I have wrestled for some time about when, how and if I should reveal my diagnosis.”

“It is a daily effort for me, even during this album cycle, to regulate my nervous system so that I don’t panic over circumstances that to many would seem like normal life situations,” Gaga wrote. “Examples are leaving the house or being touched by strangers who simply want to share their enthusiasm for my music.”

She continues, “I also struggle with triggers from the memories I carry from my feelings of past years on tour when my needs and requests for balance were being ignored. I was overworked and not taken seriously when I shared my pain and concern that something was wrong. I ultimately ended up injured on the Born This Way Ball. That moment and the memory of it has changed my life forever.  The experience of performing night after night in mental and physical pain ingrained in me a trauma that I relive when I see or hear things that remind me of those days.”

Read the full essay on the Born This Way Foundation website here.

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