Author's Note

My choice to complete my senior thesis project on this topic was because I follow a lot of these celebrities and suffer from mental illness myself. I felt that this topic would be fun to research because it is something I'm interested in. As I started to research the topic, I became more involved in learning how celebrities are helping millions overcome their struggle of mental illness.

It is important to research this because it can potentially help end the stigma and inspire more people to dig deeper into mental illness and cause more awareness. This process has taught me a great deal on how a celebrity can affect someone's life by disclosing their illness. After analyzing the results, I would love to see more celebrities doing this and creating more awareness to help normalize these illnesses and potentially help someone's life. After learning that more people are willing to research depression because of their connections to the celebrities, it made me realize how much of an impact their disclosures can continue to have. Because of celebrities showing that even they can struggle with mental illness, many fans, including me will have seeked the help we needed.

Overall, my experience during thesis has opened my eyes to how serious mental illness is around the world and how I'm not alone. I learned that researching something that relates to my personal life has also impacted my thoughts as well on mental illness. This study left me feeling confident that more people will continue to seek help and put an end to the stigma just from reading about a celebrities personal disclosure.