Lady Gaga, Billie Eilish and Shirley Manson each did something powerful last year – they talked about self-harming.
“I was a cutter for a long time,” the pop superstar told Oprah Winfrey in an interview published in the December issue of Elle. “And the only way that I was able to stop cutting and self-harming myself was to realize that what I was doing was trying to show people that I was in pain instead of telling them and asking for help.”
Gaga continued: “When I realized that telling someone, ‘Hey, I am having an urge to hurt myself,’ that defused it. I then had someone next to me saying, ‘You don’t have to show me. Just tell me: What are you feeling right now?’ And then I could just tell my story.”
The singer said she is grateful her self-harm days are behind her – and she doesn’t want to glamourize cutting. Gaga shared advice for those currently harming themselves.
“Ice,” she said. “If you put your hands in a bowl of ice-cold water, it shocks the nervous system, and it brings you back to reality.”
Earlier this month, in an on-stage conversation with Winfrey, Gaga acknowledged that self-harm was not a solution.
“You see the blood, and then you feel chaotic, and then you spiral more and more out of control,” she said. “It is actually not helpful in any way. It is going to make your spiral worse. It will make the neurotic state that you're in something that is going to be prolonged instead of shortening the amount of time that you're in it.”
In an interview with Rolling Stone published last July, Eilish talked about seeing girls at her concerts with scars on their arms.
“It breaks my heart,” she admitted. “I don’t have scars anymore because it was so long ago. But I’ve said to a couple of them, ‘Just be nice to yourself.’ Because I know. I was there.
“I went through a whole self-harming phase — we don’t have to go into it. But the gist of it was, I felt like I deserved to be in pain.”
MORE: Billie Eilish Gets Personal About Mental Health
Manson took to social media last August with a message for anyone self-harming: “Don’t be daft,” she wrote.
The Garbage singer recalled how boyfriends messed with her self-esteem and caused her to deface her body with razors and penknives.
“I thought I was unloveable. I thought it was all my fault. I thought I deserved it,” she shared in an Instagram post..
Manson advised: “Don’t put up with s**tty behaviour from s**tty people who hate themselves more than you might hate yourself. Don’t be cruel to your beautiful body like I was. Be grateful for it. Enjoy it and [its] extensive powers.
“Honour your face . Honour it because it is yours. And because it tells your authentic, true story. There is power in that. So much more than you know now.”
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