Bella Hadid has shared the most exposing Instagram post of her life - talking about her battles with mental health issues and how she’s worked on them; and in the most Gen Z fashion, has illustrated this with pictures of herself crying.
Bella, the queen bee of Gen Z, opened up about her breakdowns and burnouts, with a series of eight tearful selfies for authenticity from her own personal camera roll; puffy-eyed, pink-faced but still looking like a supermodel.
Bella has broken the supermodel fourth wall looking vulnerable IRL, and explained how her anxieties and insecurities have affected her “every day, every night for a few years now”.
After watching a clip of Willow Smith talking about insecurities, the 25-year-old wrote a lengthy social media post about her struggles and urged fans to work on themselves and recognise triggers, so that they can better cope with the bad days.
“Social media is not real,” she wrote. “For anyone struggling, please remember that. Sometimes all you’ve gotta hear is that you’re not alone. So from me to you, you’re not alone. I love you, I see you, and I hear you.
“Self help and mental illness/chemical imbalance is not linear and it is almost like a flowing rollercoaster of obstacles… it has its ups and downs , and side to sides. But I want you to know, there is always light at the end of the tunnel, and the rollercoaster always comes to a complete stop at some point.
“(There is always room for it to start up again, but for me it’s always been nice to know that even if it’s a few days, weeks, or months, it does get better, to some extent, even for a moment. ) it took me a long time to get that in my mind, but I’ve had enough breakdowns and burnouts to know this: if you work hard enough on yourself, spending time alone to understand your traumas, triggers, joys, and routine, you will always be able to understand or learn more about your own pain and how to handle it. Which is all that you can ask of yourself.
“Anyways. Not sure why but it feels harder and harder to not share my truth on here. Thank you for seeing me and thank you for listening. I love you
Willow replied: “Your honesty and tenderness heals so many ❤️”
Proof as if anyone needed it that social media isn’t real, and co-signed by someone with one of the biggest followings on social media.
But is posting this ‘social media isn’t real’ expose to social media perpetuating the problem? Or is it actually making us all aware of each others’ fallibility and learning from it? Is it a help or a hindrance?
If tearful pics are what it takes for people to open up about their mental health, and that in turn makes social media into more of a safe space, then so be it, carefully curated angles and all.