Renowned actress, Taraji Penda Henson has opened up on her battle with depression.
Listed among Time Magazine’s ‘ Most influential persons in the world’ in 2016, the movie star opened up with her struggle with depression in a chat with Variety Magazine
“I suffer from depression. My anxiety is kicking up, even more, every day, and I’ve never really dealt with anxiety like that. It’s something new,” she said.
Speaking on how she tackles her depression problems, Henson noted that she steers clear off social media to avoid having to compare herself with people living “false lives” and “filtering pictures”.
“Even if life is good for you, you can still get on there and become depressed because people are filtering pictures and living these false lives, and it makes you second guess yourself,” she said.
“I have a therapist that I speak to. That’s the only way I can get through it. You need a professional who can give you exercises, someone who studies the human mind and has no stakes involved.
“Their job is to make sure you’re mentally sound and tell you the truth, which might hurt. I remember the first time I went, I was angry because I was like, ‘She didn’t tell me nothing!’ You’re not going to figure it out in one sitting.”
In 2016, Time named Henson one of the 100 most influential people in the world. That year, she released a New York Times best selling autobiography titled Around the Way Girl.Also that year, she was praised for her starring role as Katherine Johnson in the critically acclaimed drama film Hidden Figures, for which she won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.
In 2012, Henson was in the large ensemble cast film Think Like A Man, based on Steve Harvey’s 2009 book Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man. She reprised the role in the film’s sequel, Think Like a Man Too, released in June 2014.