Lady Gaga is a fierce champion for so many communities and issues, and part of her advocacy includes being incredibly open about her own struggles. She’s spoken out about her experience with sexual assault, mental health issues, PTSD, chronic pain, and much more, showing others who cope with the same things that they aren’t alone. In a new interview with Oprah, Lady Gaga continued to help people understand mental illness and its connection to chronic pain, and broke down the stigma around taking mental health medication.
As part of Oprah’s 2020 Vision: Your Life in Focus tour, Gaga sat down with Oprah for a long talk. During the interview, the singer spoke honestly about her mental health, her experience with fibromyalgia, and how taking mental health medication has helped her “tremendously.”
Gaga previously spoke about being diagnosed with PTSD and fibromyalgia, but in her talk with Oprah she dove a little deeper into how the two things may be connected.
“I was raped repeatedly when I was 19 years old, and I also developed PTSD as a result of being raped and also not processing that trauma. I did not have anyone help me, I did not have a therapist, I did not have a psychiatrist, I did not have a doctor help me through it,” she said. “I all of a sudden became a star and was traveling the world going from hotel room to garage to limo to stage, and I never dealt with it, and then all of a sudden I started to experience this incredible intense pain throughout my entire body that mimicked the illness I felt after I was raped.”
The singer went on to explain that her pain was part of a “trauma response.” According to the Mayo Clinic, fibromyalgia is a condition marked by widespread pain, fatigue, and cognitive difficulties. While doctors don’t know the exact cause of fibromyalgia, the Mayo Clinic notes that it can be triggered by physical and emotional trauma, or psychological stress.
After expanding on her struggle with mental health and chronic pain, Gaga opened up about the importance of medication. She called it a controversial topic, noting that there’s still intense stigma surrounding treating mental illness with medication, which is why it’s so important that the star is so honest about her own use of mental health medicine.
“Medication has helped me tremendously,” Gaga said. “I take an anti-psychotic. [If I didn’t take it] I would spiral very frequently and I would spasm in my sleep.”
Speaking openly about her own mental health medication can help reduce the stigma associated with treating mental illness, helping others realize that there’s nothing bad or wrong about getting any sort of medical treatment — whether it’s for your mind or your body.
