Tag Archives: LGBT mental health

Cara Delevingne Reveals Why She Opened Up About Her Depression (Video)

Earlier this month, Cara Delevingne revealed that she was suffering from depression while she was modelling, and needed to take a break for a while, and now she’s outlined why she posted the series of tweets.

Talking to E! at CinemaCon, she explained

Things which happen in the mind, things that occur, are less spoken about. Mental illness goes unseen, but hopefully I don’t want it to be unheard. I want to speak up for it.”

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Delevingne continued:

I’ve seen a lot of people I love in my life suffer from it, including myself, so I don’t want people to carry on. One of the main things is talking about it, speaking about it for myself and hoping that other people will be able to talk about it too.”


Last month, she made a triumphant return to modelling in a stunning Yves Saint Laurent campaign, but her focus on her film career during the hiatus has paid dividends.

Delevingne will soon be seen as Enchantress in Suicide Squad this summer and next year in Luc Besson’s sci-fi blockbuster Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.

Suicide Squad will be released on August 5.

Watch the awesome trailer below:

Why Cara Delevingne and Ruby Rose Talking About Mental Health Is Needed

A few days ago Cara Delevingne took to Twitter to explain how dealing with mental illness made being a supermodel pretty tough.

I suffer from depression and was a model during a particularly rough patch of self hatred.

I am so lucky for the work I get to do but I used to work to try and escape and just ended up completely exhausting myself.

I am focusing on filming and trying to learn how to not pick apart my every flaw. I am really good at that.

Okay…. Rant over. Just wanted to clarify and word vomit a little.”

https://twitter.com/Caradelevingne/status/715699196544880640

Days later, Ruby Rose also posted about her own struggle.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BDrsrJ3MZQ7/

As someone who suffers with anxiety, panic attacks, and periods of depression, I think Cara and Ruby sharing these things is a very, very good thing.

Yes, I get why some people don’t like it. There are people who think that someone who’s famous has no right to discuss such a big, serious topic.

And we don’t necessarily want famous faces being to be the definitive face people think of when they hear about mental illness.

I get all that.

But I’m of the opinion that celebrities sharing their struggles also does a lot of good.

When they admit that they’ve experienced issues with mental health, it does a number of important things.

One: It gets us talking about mental health in a big way.

Two: It breaks down the silence and stigma surrounding mental illness – because if we can talk about Cara Delevingne having depression, maybe it’s okay for us to talk about what we’re going through, too.

Also, when a celebrity speaks out, it reminds everyone that people who seem to have everything can be pretty miserable.

Depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, eating disorders – they’re not moralistic beings that judge how sad you should be, based on your current wage and living situation.

You can have everything you could possibly need in life and not be happy. It’s not a choice. It’s not being ungrateful, or moaning, or not realising that other people ‘have it much worse’.

It’s your brain malfunctioning. It can happen to you even if you ‘should’ be the happiest person around.

The face of depression isn’t just a person who cries all the time. They can be cheery and chatty and confident.

Mental illness is an invisible illness.

You can’t tell what someone’s going through just by looking at them.

When a celebrity admits they have a mental illness, it works to add another story and face to what we think of when we think of mental health and helps break down the negative stereotypes of what people with mental illness are like.

And for people going through similar stuff, a celebrity being open about their issues makes us feel less alone – and reminds us that we can get through this.

If someone with depression can battle through it, work hard, and be mega successful, we can, too.

New Study Reveals Lesbians Drink More Than Straight Women

A new UK study has revealed that lesbians drink far more than straight women, even after having a hazardous relationship with alcohol.

Scientists used to theorise that LGB women would drink more than their straight counterparts because, well, being LGB apparently makes women sad, so they drink to feel better.

However, study conducted by Britain’s leading LGBT mental health charity, PACE found that 31.9 percent of straight women engaged in problematic drinking, as compared to 37.1 percent of lesbian and bisexual women, but almost have same levels of addiction.

So why is it that lesbians drink more than straight women?

Margaret Unwin, the CEO of PACE, said that their findings showed that factors like difficulties within families, anxiety about coming out and fear of actual negative responses when accessing services creates pressures, which leads to LGB women having problematic drinking patterns.

“Problematic drinking among lesbian and bisexual women is often associated with prevailing heterosexism, such as difficulties within families, anxiety about coming out and fear of or actual negative responses when accessing services…[they] can partly explain why LGB women may have problematic drinking patterns.”

If you ask us, the fact LGB women like drinking, could really be down to the fact that some of the only safe spaces for lesbian women to exist are bars and clubs in big towns. LGB women in rural areas drink less than LGB women living in cities.

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As one interviewee in the RaRE Research Project (it stands for Risk and Resilience Explored), put it:

“British culture and attitude to alcohol [is unhelpful]. It’s encouraged. The media encourage it, it’s everywhere. It’s how we socialise. The gay scene is awful for it. There are pills everywhere. Women especially are heavy drinkers.”

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