Love Island 's Cara De La Hoyde said she's accepted she'll always have depression.
The former reality star, who won the show in 2016 with Nathan Massey, spoke candidly about her struggle with mental health, as she revealed she’s been trying to wean herself off her medication.
Cara and Nathan wed in 2019, and share two children together - son Freddie, 4, and 21-month-old daughter Delilah - but she said learning to live with her depression, anxiety and OCD is an ongoing battle.
She told Closer magazine that she’s been on medication since she was 16, and said “every now and then” she comes off them, only to find her symptoms returning.
“I’ll reach a point where I feel like I’m slipping again,” she said, as she admitted that it was “overwhelming” coping with the noise and mental load of having two young children.
She said her depression and social anxiety have affected her social life, and she’s ruled out attending events by herself because she works herself up to a point where she “feels ill”.
Cara said husband Nathan has been incredibly supportive, even though he’d “never been around someone with bad mental health before”, and he’s aware of her triggers, so can leave her in silence before she gets herself into a “state”.
The ex-reality star is now on a low dosage of antidepressants, and is hopeful that the medication will work.
“I still feel like myself, but life doesn’t feel as hard. I’ve accepted I’ll always have depression and it’s part of who I am,” she explained.
Cara said she’d tried therapy but “it didn’t work for me”, and credited her “great support network” of family and friends for helping her over the years.
She confessed she needs to keep her mind occupied, and her girlfriends and two kids give her a much needed distraction.
Cara also spoke about feeling inadequate on social media, and said she had a social media cull after constantly comparing herself to new Love Island contestants.
“I was trying to portray an image that wasn’t me to keep up and it was pressurising,” she confessed, as she said being “fake” was exhausting.
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