Celebrities with Anxiety

Sometimes it is just nice to know that we are not alone with this condition. Even celebrities, scientists, and world leaders suffer from anxiety. Late nights, bad dietary habits, money and work stress, long days and jet lag take their toll on anyone regardless of age. Anxiety sufferers are getting younger and younger, the condition can strike anyone at any time.

"There is never any logical reason for despair..."

Depression led veteran actor Stephen Fry to walk out of the West End play Cell Mates in 1995. He said later that he had considered suicide and that it was only knowing the hurt he would cause to family and friends that prevented him taking his own life.

"When you get just a complete sense of blackness or void ahead of you, that somehow the future looks like an impossible place to be, and the direction you are going seems to have no purpose, there is this word despair which is a very awful thing to feel."

But he added, "There is never any logical reason for despair. Reason has absolutely nothing to do with it. You can't reason yourself back into cheerfulness any more than you can reason yourself into an extra six inches in height."

"I had basically taken on too much work. I have pushed the boat out as far as I should in terms of taking on too many things. I'm getting older and I just could not take it any more. I am now monitoring myself very closely and I'm just trying not to get into that sort of state again."

Since undergoing therapy and receiving drug treatment for his depression, he has had a string of film successes, including starring as Oscar Wilde in Wilde, and appearing in numerous films for TV and cinema.

Actress Wynona Ryder has also had her clashes with anxiety and depression. She says, "There was a time when I was 19 when I really, really, really thought I was going crazy. I was exhausted and going through a terrible depression. I had had panic attacks from the age of 12 - probably from the pressure of working and then going through adolescence onscreen. You can be rich, poor, male, female, young, old—it doesn’t matter. Psychological illness can strike anyone, anywhere.”

"My breathing would get labored; everything would start speeding up, and I'd get very scared. The closest I ever came to describing it was that feeling when you almost get involved in a car crash and you swerve, and for a second there are needles in your head and needles in your body. It's that moment, but stretched out."

Winona decided it was time to get help and checked herself into a psychiatric clinic, and she attributes her gradual recovery to the years of intensive therapy.

FAMOUS SUFFERERS
Naomi Campbell (model)
David Bowie (singer)
John Stuart Mill (philosopher)
John Cougar Mellancamp (musician, actor)
Johnny Depp (actor)
Anne Tyler (author)
Shecky Greene (comedian)
Courtney Love (singer - actress)
Sally Field (actress)
Jim Eisenreich (baseball)
Barbra Streisand (singer)
Ann Wilson (singer)
Winona Ryder (actress)
Howard Stern (king of media)
Anne Tyler (author)
Olivia Hussey (actress)
Cher (singer, actress)
Pete Harnisch (baseball star)
James Garner (actor)
Tom Snyder (host)
Kim Basinger (actress)
Earl Campbell (football star)
Donny Osmond (actor)
Marie Osmand (entertainer)
Oprah Winfrey (host)
John Candy (comedian)
Edvard Munch (artist)
Beverly Johnson (supermodel)
John Madden (announcer)
Howie Mandel (comic)
Sam Shepard (playwright)
Lani O'Grady (actress)
Robert Burns (poet)
Isaac Asimov (author)
Alanis Morisette (singer)
Sissy Spacek (actress)
Robin Quivers (radio host)
Barbara Gordon (filmmaker)
Burt Reynolds (actor)
Sir Isaac Newton (scientist)
Charles Schultz (cartoonist)
Michael English (singer)
Sir Laurence Olivier (actor)
Dean Cain (actor)
John Steinbeck (author)
W.B. Yeats (poet)
Leila Kenzle (actress)
Aretha Franklin (singer)
Joan Rivers (actress)
Deanna Carter (singer)
Dave Stewart of the (singer – Eurythmics)
Al Kasha (songwriter)
Charlotte Bronte (author)
Nikola Tesla (inventor)
Roseanne Barr (comedian)
Naomi Judd (singer)
Susan Powter (tv host)
Sigmund Freud (psychiatrist)
Carly Simon (singer)
Willard Scott (weatherman)
Nicole Kidman (actress)
Sheryl Crow (musician)
Anthony Hopkins (actor)
Dick Clark (television personality)
Ray Charles (musician)
Eric Clapton (musician)
Edie Falco (actress)
Barbara Bush (former First Lady - U.S.)
Tony Dow (actor director)
Michael Crichton (writer)
Robert McFarlane (former National Security Advisor - U.S.)
Bonnie Raitt (musician)