Ruby Barker from the hit Netflix series “Bridgerton” revealed Thursday that she was in a hospital recovering from mental health issues.
“I’ve been really unwell for a really long time, and I just wanna be really honest with everybody. I have been struggling. I am in hospital at the minute, and I’m gonna get discharged soon and hopefully get to continue with my life,” Barker said in a video posted to her Instagram page. In the caption, she said it was “time to be transparent.”
She went on to reveal she was “rage-filled,” “frustrated” and “angry,” saying she had “intergenerational trauma bundled up” inside her. “I was carrying the weight of the world on my back,” Barker said.
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The “Bridgerton” actress reveal that she had faced mental health struggles amid the success she found in her career. She thanked the friends and colleagues that went to bat for her and stood by her side during her most challenging moments.
“I can’t carry on the way I’ve been carrying on. I need to change, so that is what I’m trying to do,” Barker said. “I want to survive and I will survive. I am going to.”
She described having too much on the go and being hard on herself, which she said ultimately became too much for her to handle. “I felt like I was so alone. I was trying to hold together my mental health like this, just adding so much pressure like my brain was just gonna go ‘boom,’ and that’s basically what happened,” Barker said, as she demonstrated the pressure with hand gestures.(RELATED: Dartmouth Researchers Are Working On AI That Identifies Mental Illness From Internet Posts)
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Barker briefly touched on the fact that she has received an official diagnosis and promised to revisit that information at a later time. She was vocal about pushing for change by engaging in honest conversations about mental health.
“We really need to change the dialogue and think about our linguistics when we’re actually talking about mental health,” Barker said in her video.
“I want to encourage others: if you’re struggling, please do yourself a favor, take a break, stop being so hard on yourself,” Barker also said.