There was a time when many people regarded depressive episodes as a "skeleton in the closet" but I hope those Victorian attitudes are finally being shed
Lady Gaga
Inez & Vinoodh
February 6, 2014 12:30 PM ET
Lady Gaga got serious recently when asked for the biggest thing she has learned about herself. Rather than a glib answer, she told Harper's Bazaar about the depression she felt – and the tolls it took on her – after the November release of her third album, Artpop. It's a feeling she had hinted at when she vented about feeling betrayed by members of her inner circle at the start of the year.
"I became very depressed at the end of 2013," she
said. "I was exhausted fighting people off. I couldn't even feel my own
heartbeat. I was angry, cynical and had this deep sadness like an anchor
dragging everywhere I go. I just didn't feel like fighting anymore. I
didn't feel like standing up for myself one more time—to one more person
who lied to me."
Gaga said the only way she was able to break free of
the depression was by confronting herself on New Year's Day. She looked
in the mirror and warned herself that if she didn't fight she would not
survive the slump. "I really felt like I was dying—my light completely
out," she said. "I said to myself, 'Whatever is left in there, even just
one light molecule, you will find it and make it multiply. You have to
for you. You have to for your music. You have to for your fans and your
family.'"
Gaga added that she didn't feel like depression was
depleting her "talents"; instead it made them harder to find. "I learned
that my sadness never destroyed what was great about me," she said.
"You just have to go back to that greatness, find that one little light
that's left. I'm lucky I found one little glimmer stored away."
So is she happy now? "Today, yes," she told the
magazine. And just what would she like her epitaph to be? "She spread
love with every invention." Elsewhere in the interview, she discussed
kicking an eating disorder and said that she felt critics didn't quite
understand her art.
Asked for something true about herself that people need to know, she said, "That it's not an act."
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