What causes a lot of celebrities to have mental health struggles?

[kyupol]

Ego. We all have it. Some of us have more of it than others.
It's never satisfied. Always leaves you empty inside. Seems to make it worse the more it's satisfied.

So moral of the story? Be content and happy with what you have.

[abigaillmartin]

I can imagine being a celebrity would be very isolating. A whole other level of isolation to an individual in that sense.

This from experience… isolation is torturous! I have had many of my mental issues come from being isolated.

But I can’t imagine with people watching you constantly on your every move, it is a whole other form of isolation. The world is at your feet and the people are watching you but you are so alone no human could possibly handle.

Basically my point is… isolation leads to mental instability. It is the pure form of torture.

Speaking from personal experience.

[abigaillmartin]

My source and credentials:

I learned this in psychology class and my personal experience

[LunarScyphozoa]

It’s the human experience, it’s just more noticeable in celebrities due to how many eyes are on them to see something. Money can’t buy happiness, though it can prevent a lot of misery, and fame comes with its own downsides. There’s no such thing as a happy healthy adult human in the world today, and there never really has been. Everyone’s got different problems and a lot of them are of the mental variety.

[GamerPrincessXI]

Some celebrities have Pstd from things the industry ask them to do and the trauma of it caused them to act out.

[vapidink]

It's mostly because of all the pressure. If you think about the most well adjusted celebrities they usually think of whatever field they work in as just a job and keep very private lives, often staying away from social media. Cillian Murphy, for example, doesn't like the fame that comes with being an accomplished actor. He's an actor because he enjoys acting, not because he enjoys the attention.

Child actors are more vulnerable to this sort of external pressure from fans and the media because they don't know how to set up and enforce boundaries. Their lives and their mistakes as they grow up are widely reported on and scrutinized. It's no wonder the pressure so often gets to them and they end up with mental health or substance abuse problems. Daniel Radcliffe managed to avoid any issues because he had people looking out for him and was able to lead a private life while working on low profile and more out there projects he genuinely was interested in. His co-star, Emma Watson, distanced herself from acting and focused on her studies.

Contrast this with celebrities like Britney spears and Amanda Bynes, both of whom were exploited and abused. Their mental health struggles were widely reported on and mocked at the time thanks to the tabloids and it's only now that we know the truth of what brought on their respective issues.

In the end, money is great but it does nothing to protect people from the mental health struggles that we all face and the fame and overbearing attention can make things worse. The entertainment industry can be a vicious and exploitative place, especially for people who are already facing their own inner struggles. If you want to write about this topic, I recommend researching some of the cases of actors who've had a difficult time and see what sorts of things they've had to endure.

[abigaillmartin]

Or Houdini. He loved doing magic. It’s all about the passion.

[vapidink]

Now I'm wondering if he ever had issues with paparazzi. I think they were getting started sometime around the end of the 19th century so they were definitely around in his lifetime and especially when he was most famous.

[abigaillmartin]

I would love to write about his encounters with paparazzi

I guess close enough with what I go was the many news reporters and journalists crowding around him to ask him to many questions at once.

And the hoards of fans 🤣

Huh… now I want to see how he dealt with it. He was pretty polite most of the time.

[vapidink]

Maybe they weren't too bad back then, since they were just getting started. Like, maybe they weren't invading anyone's privacy that badly yet, lol.

[abigaillmartin]

autistic urge to scream because I don’t know the answer to a subject I am well versed in

shaking

This happened to me when one of my coworkers asked me what his favorite color was.

I’m sure he might have. He was “WORLD’S eclipsing sensation”

He had some issues with theater mangers who wouldn’t pay him and were being massive jerks. But that’s another story
He sprinted out of the dressing room in his bathrobe it was that bad. Oh that one was a DOOZY!! 🤣

[abigaillmartin]

And annnnd
This was before social media, TV AND ANNNND and

Well I guess they had the newspaper and letters and telegraph
But basically he didn’t need any TV or social media
Did I mention before radio too?

Speaking of radio… he was there for the early days of it. But it was before tape or anything recording on radio. So I CAN’T hear him speak in glorious 1920s radio!

dramatic swooning and crying I need to hear you Harry… besides with crunchy wax cylinder!

At least the transcripts of these radio broadcasts are still here.
I have a good idea of his dictation and vocal patterns. So if I read the transcripts I can hear it in my head.

dramatically leaning against the wall with sad old Hollywood strings

[abigaillmartin]

Right. Sorry. Carry on. ️

[vapidink]

Too be fair, it's hard to find info from the farther back in time you go. I mean, I don't think people back then expected to be famous enough in the future that people would care about the details of their life, lol.

Honestly, I get that. I might run out in a bathrobe if someone owed me money

For sure the paparazzi were getting pics for newspapers, so probably from his acts, but yeah. I don't think they were hiding in bushes outside anyone's house yet.

[abigaillmartin]

Also I think mainly when I think of what was close enough to paparazzi for the time it would’ve been the press or the journalists that were attending his acts especially with his outdoor acts.
Jumping in the river manacled and all that

But none was more apparent than his suspended straight jacket escapes.
Sometimes he would deliberately do the outdoor stunt where the local newspaper was headquartered and he would even tell them what he wanted the headline to be while he was doing it.

Dude! That is hilarious to me! 🤣

Houdini was really good at self promotion too. And was a natural showman. That was just genius 🥺️

[Lensing]

Fame has more negative effects than positive.

Having money / comfort doesn´t fix anything and especially
not mental health struggles.

Most non celebrities don´t appreciate how much comfort they already
have because we get used to comfort. How many times do you smile
out of happiness because you sleep in a warm bed, have clean drinking water,
a fridge and can take a shower?

[Shanny8]

ALSO- even though it's perceived that they make a lot of money, a lot of them actually dont. You take away fees that they may have to pay to certain organizations...like SAG(Screen Actors Guild) that protect them from being exploited by studios, their agents & publicists- who are out there pitching for them to get work, and if you're top tier- security/protection if you're widely known and going places.

If you're a popular actor/actress you made get roles and jobs thrown at you...but if you're a mid ranked to low tier actor/actress(or older performer)? You may have to do scheduled auditions to secure work; some end up having to do that their entire career and never hit the level they dreamed of- that in itself can be stressing.

Plus you're "forced" to live near the hotbed where a lot of the jobs/movies/TV shows are created and it's VERY expensive(for the ones that haven't quite made it).

And that's just actors...music artists/performers start out in the red AND in some cases a lot of their earlier work is owned by the record company- they have to buy the rights back to it; that's why a lot of them do concerts- because tours/shows is the path that puts a lot of money back in their pockets, not the album and single song sales.

So yeah, I can see why some would have mental health issues...the pressure is a LOT.

[Lane_Kalchik]

One problem that causes mental health issues in celebritities may even be their entire essence...being a celebrity. Their lives whether they like it or not, slowly turn into shows for ppl, their fans. And in time, those lives build up to have the drama and conflict we see in the stories they act and work in.
If you think about it, it’s the celebrities who have some sort of rumor or controversy about them that are most remembered.
They end up becoming the puppets of ppl. No privacy, no choice in the way they live their lives - everything is being judged and altered by the audience. They are characters in a choose your own adventure book. And that changes and hurts ppl from being ppl.

I think a literary analysis of the song 'Gasoline' by Halsey will give you some more inspiration and insight on the topic.

[Silver7]

And I can bet you that many celebrities didn't get to have normal friendships when they were younger due to their own fame isolating them, I mean that is why Michael Jackson wanted to jump and play on stage with children even when he was an adult, he never got to get that playfulness out of his system as a kid. I'm sure you know what I mean right?

[Silver7]

I think Daniel Radcliffe has a good wife that takes care of him, having a good partner helps