Paramore’s Hayley Williams pens powerful essay about mental health struggles

Paramore's Hayley Williams has penned a powerful essay about her mental health struggles.

The 29-year-old singer described her struggles as leaving her feeling like a "piano fell right on top of me" in the candid op-ed for Paper Magazine.  She recalled how she began to struggle with her mental health in the summer of 2015, a few months before she married New Found Glory's Chad Gilbert. The singer said that at the time she felt "everything was finally going to be perfect, I was going to live happily ever after" - but things soon changed. She discussed how her mental health began to deteriorate after Paramore bassist Jeremy Davis quit the band and cracks began to emerge in her relationship. She wrote:

"I woke up from that crash [of the piano] with one less bandmate... another fight about money and who wrote what songs.

"And I had a wedding ring on, despite breaking off the engagement only months before.

"A lot happened within a short time. But then I didn't eat, I didn't sleep, I didn't laugh... for a long time.

"I'm still hesitant to call it depression. Mostly out of fear people will put it in a headline, as if depression is unique and interesting and deserves a click. Psychology is interesting. Depression is torment."

The Airplanes singer told how songwriting soon became her outlet and how the writing sessions with her bandmate, Taylor York, helped her heal. She also explained how it helped her realise she should not have married Gilbert, who she announced she had split with in July 2017. They had been together for eight years. She continued:

"We wrote and wrote and I never liked what I put to the music Taylor sent me. His stuff sounded inspired. "My parts sounded, to me, like someone dead in the eyes. I didn't know the person behind those words. "Probably because I never before allowed her to come out and say how she really felt. I never cared to get to know her. "[Songwriting] helped me understand that emotional wellness and physical health are actually related. "It helped me realise that I shouldn’t have ever married my ex and that love is not something we can just extract from one other."

She went on to tell fans she was doing much better now, and her heart has been "opened to healing" She added:

"Writing opened my heart to healing. I'm alive to both pain and joy now. "I have my old laugh back, as my mom says. The one that takes over my body and sends me out of myself for a few seconds."

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