"It was a relief": Rebecca Gibney opens up on mental health struggles
Rebecca Gibney has revealed what a "relief" it was to finally open up about the mental health struggles she faced from 14 to 30-years-old.
The New Zealand actress, 58, said she spent a lot of that time "pretending" she was okay despite growing up around domestic violence, as her mother suffered from abuse in the hands of Gibney's late father, Austin.
In an interview with Stellar on Saturday, the Packed to the Rafters star shared that she is "loving" how mental health is now being framed.
“When I started talking about my mental health struggles and anxiety ... it was a relief,” she told the publication.
“I could drop the mask of pretending that I was OK. What I’m loving seeing is that more and more people are now going, ‘I’m not OK’”.
Gibney first opened up about her struggles in 2017, when she opened up about the abuse her mother faced and how she was “beaten so badly she had bruises for six months on her legs.
“She’d always shut the doors ... you’d hear the yelling and the shouting and the slapping, but you’d never actually see it," she told Women's Day, at the time.
After Gibney's father died in 1982, the actress began seeing a therapist, but was "on Valium and in a dark place for quite a while”.
In her latest interview with Stellar, Gibney also added that more needed to be done to prevent domestic violence and help survivors.
“We still don’t want to talk about it. We need to really drill down (and question), ‘Why is this happening?’ We need more education, more centres," she said.
“We need people to be able to get the help they need.”
Images: Instagram