Read Lady Gaga’s powerful letter about suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder

Singer describes her struggles with the mental health condition

Lady Gaga has penned an open letter about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), in which she describes her suffering from the condition as a “daily effort” and urges others to “overcome their shame” that is usually associated with mental health problems.

The singer first revealed that she suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder earlier this week. Now, she has posted a powerful letter to her Born This Way Foundation website, writing: “After five years of searching for the answers to my chronic pain and the change I have felt in my brain, I am finally well enough to tell you. There is a lot of shame attached to mental illness, but it’s important that you know that there is hope and a chance for recovery.”

“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. Examples are leaving the house or being touched by strangers who simply want to share their enthusiasm for my music.”

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“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.”

Lady Gaga at Westfield 5Getty

Gaga continues: “I also experience something called dissociation which means that my mind doesn’t want to relive the pain so “I look off and I stare” in a glazed over state… My body is in one place and my mind in another. It’s like the panic accelerator in my mind gets stuck and I am paralyzed with fear.”

“When this happens I can’t talk. When this happens repeatedly, it makes me have a common PTSD reaction which is that I feel depressed and unable to function like I used to. It’s harder to do my job. It’s harder to do simple things like take a shower. Everything has become harder. Additionally, when I am unable to regulate my anxiety, it can result in somatization, which is pain in the body caused by an inability to express my emotional pain in words.”

The star also calls on others to become more open about their mental health issues: “I seek to raise awareness that this mental illness affects all kinds of people, including our youth. I pledge not only to help our youth not feel ashamed of their own conditions, but also to lend support to those servicemen and women who suffer from PTSD. No one’s invisible pain should go unnoticed.”

“I am doing various modalities of psychotherapy and am on medicine prescribed by my psychiatrist.  However, I believe that the most inexpensive and perhaps the best medicine in the world is words. Kind words…positive words…words that help people who feel ashamed of an invisible illness to overcome their shame and feel free.”

Find out more about PTSD and seek help here.

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Read more: Reborn This Way – the full Lady Gaga NME interview

Meanwhile, Gaga recently took to the roof of London’s Westfield shopping centre to perform an intimate gig for 100 fans.

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