Your favorite celebrities do a lot of things with their platform and the millions of eyes they have on their lives and thoughts at any given point in time. Most use it to continuously further their career and profit off of our attention. Many use this to help with boosting things that are important to them, and some help with charitable efforts. But more and more celebs are opening up about pertinent mental health and mental illness topics that were once taboo to speak on in the media. Let’s talk about how celebrities are using their platforms to promote mental health awareness and who these folk are.
Talking About It
The biggest way anybody, celebrity or not, can help with mental health awareness is simply talking about it more. Discussing what you may struggle with on a daily basis, the importance of taking care of your mental wellbeing, and any other related topics helps bring more attention to it which leads to more focus on these issues. And celebrities doing so brings that to a larger scale. Many famous folk over the years have begun opening up about their struggle with mental illness, addiction, mental health, and more as a means of being more real with their fans and the world.
Charitable Efforts
Whether it’s donating time and money to charities that help with mental health or creating their own entire foundations based on these principles, celebrities have been making charitable efforts for mental struggles in droves. Demi Lovato has been a huge advocate for her own mental health issues and addiction struggles, and began the Mental Health Fund for assisting people with similar issues. Multiple other major charities are funded by, owned by, or faced by big name celebrities to keep the conversation going and help those that need it.
Reducing Stigma
There has always been a really tough stigma around mental struggles. Many people grow up staying quiet so that they can keep pretending to be okay or just because they don’t know what else to do. Men are often frowned upon in particular for opening up about negative emotions or hard times. Celebrities use their platforms for things that bring more awareness to these topics, and in time reduce that stigma. Simon Biles started a social media campaign based on this, and Chyler Leigh is the face of the Be Vocal: Speak Up campaign for mental health.
Mental health impacts every single person on the planet. We don’t all have mental illness, but having bad days or angry days or happy days is a part of our mental health and is something every human of all ages goes through each day. And opening up more topics, aid, and focus on the matter really helps us not feel so alone when we’re struggling, as well as provide help to those that need it with less stigma. Seeing that even celebs that seem so perfect in the media can struggle and place importance on this topic is pertinent. And these celebs realize that, which is why they are using their platforms to promote more awareness and discussion on mental health.