Anxiety and panic attacks are real, social networks are not: Bella Hadid talks about what she learned from Instagram and her mental health problems

Bella Hadid has recently published a post on Instagram in which with great sincerity she admits to suffer and above all to struggle daily with anxiety problems and panic attacks.

Along with some photos in which she shows herself in tears and with a drip attached to her arm – published with the intention of physically showing what it feels like to be overwhelmed by these attacks – she wrote some very important words for anyone who wants to read them: “Social media are not real. For all those who are battling anxiety, please remember this. Sometimes someone needs to remember it, to say that we are not alone “. How many times have we found ourselves comparing ourselves to what we see posted on Instagram? How many times have we evaluated our life in relation to what we think, scrolling through the photos, is the life of others? I, personally, many and this, more often than not, caused me suffering because I felt unfulfilled, sad and incredibly unfortunate. But everyone on social media shows the best part of us, choosing to exclude instead the imperfect one, the sad periods or the less exciting ones.

Precisely for this reason the story of Bella Hadid it is important: not only does it remind us of a sacrosanct truth that, however, very often we tend to forget, but also because it sheds light on mental health problems and what it means to live with them. Bella said she did it because it was getting “harder and harder not to share the truth”but also to explain that “if you work hard enough on yourself, spending time alone to understand your traumas and joys, you will always be able to understand or learn more about your pain and how to manage it.” In fact, he spoke of absolutely negative days, but also of other positive ones and that, with the passage of time, the latter surpass the former which, however, become much more manageable than in the past.

Often talking about these issues is quite difficult due to the stigma that still surrounds the discussion of mental health, but it is also difficult because telling it means reliving pain and suffering. However, it is very important: it helps to normalize these types of problems and helps those who experience them and are trying to understand how to deal with them. As it teaches us Bella Hadid, the important thing is to hide your head in the sand: you have to start taking care of yourself because, only in this way, things are destined to improve.

Let us remember, therefore, that there is nothing wrong with asking for help from professionals if we think we need it, nor with telling what makes us suffer: our mental health is important and there is nothing worth neglecting it for.