While Lady Gaga rules hearts today, she had to go through a ‘difficult time’ being ‘humiliated, isolated, taunted’ when she was young, according to her mother.
Cynthia Germanotta, the singer’s mother, got candid about her daughter’s mental health when she was in middle school saying: “Stefani (Lady Gaga’s real name) was very unique and that wasn’t always appreciated by her peers and, as a result; she went through a lot of difficult times,” Fox News quoted her as saying in an interview.
Germanotta continued that young Gaga was “humiliated, taunted, isolated.”
“When you’re a young woman, this really severely impacts you,” she added.
Taking a trip down the memory lane and recalling those days, Gaga’s mother said that it was in middle school, when “she went from a very happy and aspirational young girl to somebody that started to question her self-worth, to have doubts about herself.”
Admitting the fact that she was unable to handle Gaga’s mental health issues, Germanotta said: “When it happened in our house, I didn’t know what to look for.”
Despite not knowing what method to go forward with, Germanotta was quick to notice that Gaga’s depreciating mental health was having an effect on the family.
“What I didn’t realise is the profound impact that it can have. It basically turns the focus of everything onto that one individual and families feel conflicted about it, they don’t really understand it; it causes conflict and a lot of stress within the families,” Germanotta explained.
“It can also cause feelings, for me personally, feelings of guilt, of helplessness — not knowing how to help my daughter,” she continued.
Germanotta, however, pressed that no family can remain immune to it and that parents should “really listen” to their kids when they express themselves.
“What I learned from my daughter is to listen and validate her feelings. I think as parents, our natural instinct is to go into problem-solving mode when, in fact, they really just want us to take them seriously and understand what they’re saying,” she added.
