NEW YORK, Dec. 5 (UPI) — Lady Gaga revealed she has lived with posttraumatic stress disorder while visiting a home shelter for LGBT youths as part of NBC’s Share Kindness campaign.
“I’ve been searching for ways to help myself. And I found that kindness is the best way,” the 30-year-old singer told NBC’s “Today” recently while she surprised the teens at Harlem’s Ali Forney Center.
“I told the kids today, ‘I suffer from PTSD.’ I’ve never told anyone that before,” she said. “So here we are. But the kindness that’s shown to me by doctors as well as my family, and my friends, it’s really saved my life.”
She told the youths how meditation “helps calm me down” and led them in a brief exercise.
“I don’t have the same kind of issues that you have, but I have a mental illness and I struggle with that every day so I need my mantra to help keep me relaxed,” she said.
Gaga wrote a note to every teen living in the center.
“I am no better than any of those kids. And I’m no worse than any of them,” she said. “And we’re in this together.”
According to the Ali Forney Center, 80 percent of the youths were kicked out of their homes because of their sexuality. Others run away because of neglect, abuse, rejection, or a combination of those.
Gaga invited “Today” on the visit, which aired Monday, as part of the #ShareKindness campaign — Today and NBC Universal’s celebration of kind acts both big and small. She gave her fans advance notice of the segment on Twitter.
The campaign’s goal is is to inspire one million acts of kindness by the end of the year.
Gaga co-founded Born This Way Foundation with her mom, Cynthia Germanotta, for the Share Kindness Experience at 30 Rock in New York CIty. Visitors can commit kind acts, including writing a kind letter or decorating a lunch bag for a child in need.
In 2014, Gaga revealed on “The Howard Stern Show” that she had been raped at age 19.
