Life

Marie Louise McConville: Hopefully Lady Gaga's revelations about her mental health battles will help others

Lady Gaga has been speaking this week about her own battle with mental health issues. Picture by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
Lady Gaga has been speaking this week about her own battle with mental health issues. Picture by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP Lady Gaga has been speaking this week about her own battle with mental health issues. Picture by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP

No-one likes feeling vulnerable but sometimes we have little choice.

No matter who we are, how much money we earn, what job we do, we are all human and all at risk of mental health issues.

This week, pop icon Lady Gaga made headlines around the world - but there was no music involved.

The 11-time Grammy-award winner decided to use her platform to reveal some pretty surprising facts about herself.

The Born This Way singer dropped her mask so to speak, and revealed to her millions of fans details about her own battle with mental health issues, which have inspired her new album, Chromatica.

I'm sure many people were shocked to learn that the 34-year-old has contemplated suicide in the past, revealing fame is not all it is cracked up to be.

Speaking in a recent interview, the performer said she has questioned why she should live and why she should stick around.

The singer, who's real name is Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta said life is "not always easy if you have mental issues. I didn’t think anyone could see. Cause mental health, it’s invisible".

The music icon said she would look at her beloved piano, on which she had written so many of her hit songs and think: "You ruined my life".

"I was like, `You made me Lady Gaga. My biggest enemy is Lady Gaga".

She added: "That's what I was thinking. My biggest enemy is here. What did you do? You can't go to the grocery store now. If you go to dinner with your family, somebody comes to the table. It's always about you".

The singer said a one point she had totally given up on herself. ''I hated being famous. I hated being a star. I felt exhausted and used up."

However, the singer said working on her sixth album had helped her heal.

She said: "I don't hate Lady Gaga anymore. I found a way to love myself again, even when I thought that was never gonna happen.

"Now I look at this piano and I go `Oh, my god, my piano. My piano that I love so much; my piano that lets me speak; my piano that lets me make poetry; my piano that's mine."'

"I am good enough... I'm perfectly imperfect".

I just thought it was wonderful how this world music icon allowed herself to be vulnerable and brutally honest in front of her fans and others.

I really hope her revelations will show those among us who think they are on their own with their mental health issues that they are not.

Mental ill-health is nothing to be ashamed of and it doesn't mean you cannot lead a happy and fulfilled life - just look at Lady Gaga.

It's time we all learned to ask for help when we need it.

Only then can we find a way start living again and stop just existing.

-------------------

Just when we thought life was becoming all doom and gloom again, The Great British Bake-Off returned to our screens and all was saved.

This week, 12 new bakers arrived at the famous tent to undertake a host of new baking adventures and I loved it.

Now in its 11th season, Matt Lucas has joined the team of presenters and I thought he was just brilliant, so nice and so natural.

The contestants began the series by creating their hero out of sponge and it made for some fantastic viewing.

I can't wait for more mixing mayhem and decorating disasters - bring it on.

---------------

Competition

With the nights drawing in, what could be better than a trip to the cinema to enjoy a classic mystery.

In Death on the Nile, Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot finds his Egyptian vacation aboard a glamorous river steamer turning into a terrifying search for a murderer.

Set against an epic landscape of sweeping desert vistas and the majestic Giza pyramids, this tale of unbridled passion and incapacitating jealousy features a cosmopolitan group of impeccably dressed travellers, and enough wicked twists and turns to leave audiences guessing until the final, shocking denouement.

Death on the Nile is the latest movie from Belfast-born director Kenneth Branagh, who plays Hercule Poirot, and he is joined by a stellar cast including Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, Annette Bening, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders.

Death on the Nile arrives at Movie House Cinemas on October 9. Further details are available at www.moviehouse.co.uk

I have two pairs of tickets for Death on the Nile at Movie House Cinemas to give away.

If you fancy winning a pair, email your name, address and telephone number - along with the answer to the question below - to competitions@irishnews.com

Closing date for entries is 12 noon on Tuesday September 29, 2020

(Q) Name the Belfast-born director of Death on the Nile

Normal Irish News Rules Apply

The winners of the Bill & Ted Face The Music competition are Pádraigín Herron, from Belfast and Gemma Toner, from Dunmurry