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Star Wars’ Daisy Ridley opens up on therapy, importance of mental health

[Photo by: Lucasfilm]

Star Wars star Daisy Ridley has made waves since her first appearance as Rey in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The actress recently opened up to Vogue to talk more about her quick and massive rise to fame and how that has affected her personal life and mental health.

Read more: Post-tour blues: On going home, anxiety and taking care of yourself

Ridley’s role as Rey was a massive success, and as soon as she saw the response to The Force Awakens, she immediately realized the pressure that was on her for her forthcoming role in The Last Jedi.

“Everything was so confusing,” she tells Vogue. “People were recognizing me—I still don’t know how to handle it. My skin got really bad because I was stressed. It was crippling. I just felt so seen and so self-conscious.”

She explains that she started therapy after realizing that she was reducing herself and not living the life she wanted to lead out of worries that people would recognize her, which is not much different than any rising act in the music industry has to deal with. And as Ridley says, it isn’t normal that she gets rushed through airports, and it isn’t normal that she gets free tickets to things she wouldn’t otherwise. The world of thanking fans—and still trying to find the time for yourself—is a line that Ridley says she has to manage. 

This is a topic that members of Blink-182, Circa Survive and more discussed at a recent panel, touching on the struggles musicians face including alienation, like Ridley, as well as addiction and depression that looms in their lives.

“Chris Cornell I was an enormous fan of,” Green says, “and Linkin Park was a band Circa played with a number of times. Chris and Chester embodied that idea of speaking to the alienated. That was something that spoke to me and it continues to speak to me. In order to do that you have to have gone through some sort of pain I think. We see people all the time that are expressing themselves and are artists who seemingly have it all. But the way that they're tortured and the way they deal with that is what people devour and eat up.”

Even though she still calls her mom “in hysterical tears,” worried she isn’t equipped to deal with what is now her new “normal,” Ridley has realized that she needed a change and is finding a way to truly live her life.

“I felt like I was sort of reducing myself because I was so worried that people would recognize me,” she explains to Vogue. “You know what? I want to dance through life. I don’t want to scuttle.”

The cover story wraps around almost full circle, talking about the constancy that she’s found her family “within all the other craziness that goes on.” She got a tattoo of a star within a cyclone to remind her of that constancy. Through all the stress, anxiety and fear, she’s found something that will remain through it all.

“I don’t need a tattoo to represent my life, but I really love it and thinking about all of the things that are constant,” Ridley says.

If you or someone you know is struggling with your mental health, there is help to be found. Please consider these online resources and talk to your regular doctor about your symptoms:
MentalHealth.gov – Get Immediate Help
ImAlive – Online Crisis Network
International Association For Suicide Prevention – Resources
The Anxiety And Depression Association Of America
The National Alliance On Mental Illness
American Psychiatric Association – Finding Help
National Institute Of Mental Health
American Psychological Association – Psychologist locator

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