One of the better developments over the years is the increased focus on mental health. People used to run around not knowing what was wrong with them. The conditions that we know now used to have this taboo about them, that you could never be normal if you had one. Thankfully, some self awareness and a desire to understand ourselves has (mostly) wiped this away. It's to the point where even older people are starting to realize what they've had all this time. Someone like Bruce Springsteen is candidly opening up his own mental health history over the years.
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Recently, the Born in the USA singer spoke with The Hollywood Reporter on their Awards Chatter podcast. There, Springsteen recalls a turbulent childhood that became worse due to his father battling mental illness of his own. Consequently, with the buildup of his own career and his own personal history, he has a "pretty good breakdown" around the release of his album Nebraska in 1982.
Bruce Springsteen Recalls Mental Health Woes During His Career
"By the time I came out of Born in the U.S.A., I'd been in two years of analysis because I had a pretty good breakdown back when I was 32," he recalls. "And my family was filled with mental illness, my aunts, my uncles, my pop, and it just was in our blood, so I had to deal with it too. And thankfully, Mr. [Jon] Landau had some experience with it and directed me in to get some help, which I did."
Springsteen credits some of this to the wildly shifting circumstances of his life. Marriage and finances only exacerbates some of the mental instability going on. However, in the end, he feels like he made it through alright. "I was a different person. I got married [to Julianne Phillips] during the Born in the U.S.A. Tour," Springsteen recalls. "And of course I was in a different financial situation by the time I came out of that [album cycle]. So it changed my life pretty radically. I spent some time adapting to it, but it all worked out okay."
