Hayley Williams has opened up about her struggles with mental health and how just a couple of years ago she had hoped she would die.
The Paramore singer reflects on this dark time in her life in a deeply personal essay for PAPER, in which she talks about the tribulations of divorce and the loss of a bandmate.
“A lot happened within a short time,” Williams writes. “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.”
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The 29-year-old musician mentions the departure of bassist Jeremy Davis and how that negatively affected the band. “I woke up from that crash with one less bandmate… another fight about money and who wrote what songs.”
Before the release of their 2017 comeback album, After Laughter, Williams told Beats 1 Radio host Zane Lowe how Paramore almost split up due to these various problems, admitting that they’d lost their passion for the music.
“My parts sounded, to me, like someone dead in the eyes,” she writes in her essay when talking about working on new Paramore music with guitarist Taylor York.
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However, Williams continued to write, something which, she claims, kept her alive and forced her to be honest. “[It] made me have empathy for Taylor in his struggles with mental health. It helped me understand that emotional wellness and physical health are actually related.
“It helped me realize that I shouldn’t have ever married my ex and that love is not something we can just extract from one other.”
She cites her work as part of her healing process and now finds herself in a much happier place. “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. And only a couple years ago, I had hoped I’d die.”
You can read the full essay here.
