Stars Speak About Their Experiences With Depression

Recently Drew Barrymore, Cara Delevingne and Sarah Silverman have opened up about their experiences with depression.

One in four Britons experiences a mental-health problem each year, and twice as many women as men suffer a serious bout of depression in their lifetime. But telling those close to you still remains a taboo for many.

The likes of JK Rowling, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have spoken about their depression, and here are some of their most powerful and inspiring quotes below...

Lady Gaga on her depression and anxiety

Lady Gaga gave a powerful speech at Yale University this weekend at the Emotion Revolution Summit where she said: "I have had to make decisions like . . . why am I unhappy? 'OK, Stefani-Gaga hybrid person . . . why are you unhappy? Why is it that you want to quit music?' I was like, well I really don't like selling these . . . you know, fragrances. Perfumes. I don't like wasting my time, spending days just shaking peoples' hands and smiling, and taking selfies. Feels shallow to my existence. I have a lot more to offer than my image. I don't like being used to make people money. I feel sad when I'm overworked. And that I just become a money-making machine, and my passion and creativity take a backseat. That makes me unhappy."

So what did I do? I started to say no. I'm not doing that. I don't want to do that. I'm not taking that picture, I'm not going to that event, I'm not standing by that because that's not what I stand for. And slowly but surely, I remembered who I am. And then you go home, and you look in the mirror, and you're like, 'Yes. I can go to bed with you every night.' Because that person, I know that person. That person has balls, that person has integrity, that person has an opinion. That person just doesn't say yes. That person doesn't get a text from somebody and say, 'Oh my God, they wrote this, and sent this emoji. Should I send this back? What do you think, is that OK to say? Are they going to like me if I say that? Should I say something different?' This is the age that we live in. We are not actually communicating with each other. We are unconsciously communicating lies."

She also recently told *The Sun *that acting on *American Horror Story: Hotel *has helped her battle her condition. "I’m an actress now and that helps a lot," she said.

"I’ve tried to get off [my medication], but my doctor always tells me not to, that it’s not safe for me.

"I’ve tried a lot of things but there is something about acting that has really helped."

Drew Barrymore on postpartum depression

Drew said to People Magazine: “I didn’t have postpartum the first time so I didn’t understand it because I was like, ‘I feel great! It’s a different type of overwhelming with the second. I really got under the cloud.” She haid her depression was “short-lived, probably six months."

Cara Delevingne

“I think I pushed myself so far that I got to the point where I had a mental breakdown. I got to the point where I went a bit mad. I was completely suicidal, I didn't want to live any more. I thought that I was completely alone. I also realized how lucky I was, and what a wonderful family and wonderful friends I had, but that didn't matter. I wanted the world to swallow me up.​"

"In our culture we are told that if we are beautiful, if we are skinny, if we are successful, famous, if we fit in, if everyone loves us, that we'll be happy. But that's not entirely true."

“‘Flaws are the things that make us special, the cracks within us are the beautiful parts - they need to have light shed on them.”

Nicki Minaj

“I kept having doors slammed in my face. I felt like nothing was working. I had moved out on my own, and here I was thinking I’d have to go home.” “It was just one dead end after another. At one point, I was, like, ‘What would happen if I just didn’t wake up?’ That’s how I felt. Like, ‘Maybe I should just take my life?’”

Miley Cyrus

So many people look at [my depression] as me being ungrateful, but that is not it—I can't help it. There's not much that I'm closed off about, and the universe gave me all that so I could help people feel like they don't have to be something they're not or feel like they have to fake happy. There's nothing worse than being fake happy.”

Brad Pitt

"I used to deal with depression, but I don't now, not this decade – maybe last decade. But that's also figuring out who you are. I see it as a great education, as one of the seasons or a semester: 'This semester I was majoring in depression. I was doing the same thing every night and numbing myself to sleep, the same routine. Couldn't wait to get home and hide out. But that feeling of unease was growing and one night I just said, 'This is a waste.'"

Angelina Jolie

“My mother had just passed away, and I wanted to do something physical to get it out of my head for a while. I felt I was going into a very dark place, and I wasn’t capable of getting up in the morning, so I signed up for something [the film Wanted] that would force me to be active.”

Kirsten Dunst

"It's not something I feel like totally comfortable talking about but yeah, it's a very personal thing. I definitely took a little bit of a break. And also, when you're in your twenties you need figure things out and take a step back. I had been acting so long, all my life. I think I just needed a little bit of some perspective. It was good for me and it re-inspired what I do, too."

J K Rowling

“I have never been remotely ashamed of having been depressed. Never. What’s to be ashamed of? I went through a really rough time and I am quite proud that I got out of that.”

Zoe Sugg on her panic attacks and anxiety

“[Anxiety] is a mental illness, and nobody likes to use the word ‘mental illness.’ But it is. And it’s not something that people choose to have. I didn’t choose when I was 14 to decide to have panic attacks for nine years and for it to ruin loads of opportunities for me, but that’s just what happened. And you can either let it rule your life and let it make you miserable or you can just think, ‘No, I don’t want to live my life like that anymore.’”

Gwyneth Paltrow on her postpartum depression

"I felt like a zombie. I couldn't access my heart. I couldn't access my emotions. I couldn't connect It was terrible, it was the exact opposite of what had happened when Apple was born. With her, I was on cloud nine. I couldn't believe it wasn't the same. I just thought it meant I was a terrible mother and a terrible person.

"I thought postpartum depression meant you were sobbing every single day and incapable of looking after a child. But there are different shades of it and depths of it, which is why I think it's so important for women to talk about it. It was a trying time. I felt like a failure."

Download the free Rethink Mental Illness factsheet about depression at rethink.org/resources/d. For more information, visittime-to-change.org.uk