Prince Harry, Mariah Carey, Pamela Anderson … These stars who broke the taboo of psychological well being | EUROtoday

“Jhe suffers from depression. In October 2024, Pamela Anderson, awarded for her role in The Last Showgirl (Gia Coppola) at the Zurich film festival, in Switzerland, creates astonishment. In an interview with American magazine Varietythe iconic actress opens for the first time, at 57, to the disease from which she has suffered “for twenty years”. “I’m simply comfortable to be right here, at this exact second …”

Like her, and whereas 970 million individuals are affected by psychiatric problems world wide (despair, bipolar problems, obsessive problems, addictions …), together with 13 million in France (WHO), personalities are, right this moment, an increasing number of to speak in confidence to their psychological state of well being. Our colleague Nicolas Demorand, in a shock ebook – Interior night time (The arenas), from which we reveal extracts – is added to this lengthy checklist.

Read too EXCLUSIVE. Nicolas Demorand: “I am a mental patient” Thus, Prince Harry revealed, in his memoirs printed in 2023, having suffered from despair and fought in opposition to suicidal ideas; The American gymnast Simone Biles, on the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2021, withdrew from group competitors for despair and anxiousness; American actress Amanda Seyfried in 2016 introduced that she was handled for obsessive compulsive problems; Pop Lady Gaga pop star mentioned post-traumatic stress…

In 2011, actress Catherine Zeta-Jones made her bipolar dysfunction public. She then says she is adopted in a specialised institution … “By making my bipolarity public, I hope that those who suffer will see that everything is perfectly controllable. I hope that I could help eliminate all the prejudices attached to this disease, and I hope that those who have not been treated to ask for help, “defined the latter, so precursor, within the columns of the American journal In-style.

“Limited” and ambivalent results

Her revelations (like these of others, after her) had been abundantly relayed. And extensively applauded to assist elevate the taboo, tenacious, round psychiatric problems. We praised unanimously and in a movement of tributes an method contributing to the normalization of discourse on psychological well being. What it was. But for what results on sufferers? What about most people?

They are “very limited”, relativizes Mickaël Worms-Erhminger, Doctor of Public Health and Clinical Research, creator of Live with a psychological well being dysfunction (Marabout). Of course – that is the power of testimony -, some sufferers can acknowledge themselves within the phrases of those personalities. And, as they typically name it of their needs, be taught that “solutions” exist, then undertake to deal with themselves.

“Because they are addressed to the general public, we think that these words can have an effect on him. However, he recalls, as if for any awareness, those who will listen to them and be interested in it are people already “sensitive” to the cause. »»

Among whom, the patients themselves, who welcome these speeches variously. Personalities, declaring themselves “involved with serving to others”, already demonstrate “a sure decline on the illness”, they “conscious of its penalties, and present a stage of restoration above a lot of those that hearken to them”. So “for some [généralement déjà inscrits dans une dynamique positive]these speeches are carrying hope ”. But they could even have “a negative impact on those who are not on a recovery trajectory” and may, as compared, “feel guilty or mediocre so as not to” succeed “to get better”, observes Mickaël Wormminger.

Stigmatization stays sturdy

A sense of “gap” nonetheless elevated by the truth that most sufferers can not declare the identical acceptance of these round them (private {and professional}), and even hope to speak about it with out incidence. Because “stigma remains strong,” remembers the Doctor of Public Health, citing, amongst different examples right this moment, current, the place one in every of his associates was denied a financial institution mortgage for having spoken, on behalf, his bipolar problems on the Internet.

Unfortunately, the multiplication of public talking would assist. “We all tend to think that the more we talk about it, the more we will be able to“ move ”issues, however the actuality is sort of completely different. »»

To uncover



The kangaroo of the day

Answer

So, when in April 2018, the tune of tune Mariah Carey reveals, on the duvet of the American journal Peoplehis “fight against bipolar disorder”, criticism is raining. On the networks, almost a 3rd of the feedback condemns the method, notes the psychiatrist Jean-Victor Blanc in his check POP & PSY (Plon). Many “mums the photos accompanying the article, deemed” too glamorous “,” he writes. When the sufferers “live as an additional sentence to hear that their disorder can be considered as enviable”.

In 2024, the psychological handicap remained probably the most stigmatized, far forward of sensory and engine handicaps (Ifop for the assessment Shadows & Light). To the purpose that solely 28 % of French individuals declared themselves “at ease” within the presence of an individual with psychiatric problems. Or a fall of eight factors, in comparison with 2021.