The Me You Can't See is a documentary series exploring mental health and emotional well-being, available May 21, 2021 on Apple TV+. The show is hosted by Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry. It was created in partnership with a council of professional mental health advisers and experts in various specialties.
2021[]
- Recorded on September 2020.
The Me You Can't See — Official Trailer - Apple TV+
Posters[]
Season 1[]
Episode 1: "Say it Out Loud"[]
Stills[]
Transcript[]
When I saw Oprah [at Oprah’s 2020 Vision Tour on January 4th, 2020] and we had that talk. And after she came back into the room with me and we were both crying and hugging, I felt like I was in the company of someone who was safe. I went through a really crazy time in my head that I still work on, and I'm trying to make sure that I give back with that experience instead of just... I don't know, locking it away and faking it. ["Poker Face (song) plays in the background Can't read my, can't read my / No, he can't read my poker face / She's got me like nobody] My mental health I thought was a problem when I was very young. I used to cut myself when I was really young. I had my own experiences with abuse, and it's really hard for me to articulate in a way where I feel like it's safe for young people to listen or even older people to listen about why anyone would cut. Um, I do believe that those urges for me came from a place of, I need to show the hurt inside. [Footage of Lady Gaga's performance at The Bitter End on January 20th, 2006 Listen / I've got the sickest ambition / Whoo!] I was 19 years old, and I was working in the business, and a producer said to me... "Take your clothes off." And I said, "No." And I left, and... ...they told me they were gonna burn all my music. And they didn't stop... They didn't stop asking me, and then I just froze, and I just... [Lady Gaga starts to cry] I don't-- I don't even remember. And I will not say his name. I understand this Me Too movement. I understand that some people feel really comfortable with this, and I do not. I do not ever wanna face that person again. This system is so abusive and so dangerous. Years later, I went to the hospital. They brought a psychiatrist in. I said, "Bring me a real doctor." I said, "Why is there a psych here? I can't feel my body." First, I felt full-on pain. Then I went numb. And then I was sick for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks after, and I realized that it was this same pain that I felt when the person who raped me dropped me off pregnant on the corner, my parent's house, 'cause I was vomiting and sick 'cause I'd been being abused. I was locked away in a studio for months. I wanna be able to tell everybody that's watching that I dry my tears now and I move on. Like, I-- you see? Like... I open my eyes. I was taught to do this. You roll your shoulders back. You open your eyes. It helps you regulate. You know, I know where I am. I'm in the basement of my office. And... you can come back from things like that. But when it-- when it hits you really hard, it can-- it can-- it can change you. I had a-- I had a total psychotic break. And for a couple years, I was not the same girl. The way that I feel when I feel pain is how I felt after I was raped. I've had so many MRIs and scans where they can't-- they don't find nothing, but... your body remembers. I couldn't feel anything. I disassociated. It's like your brain goes offline. And you don't know why no one else is panicking, but you are in an ult-- like, an ultra-state of paranoia. It's a really very real thing to feel like there's a black cloud that is following you wherever you go, telling you that you're worthless and should die. And I used to scream and throw myself against the wall. And you know why it's not good to cut? You know why it's not good to throw yourself against the wall? You know why it's not good to self-harm? 'Cause it makes you feel worse. You think you're gonna feel better 'cause you're showing somebody, "Hey, look. I'm in pain." It doesn't help. I always tell people, "Tell somebody. Don't show somebody." And the reason that I believe I have cut since very recently is because the process of healing and my mental health has been a slow-- a slow rise. And... even if I have six brilliant months, all it takes is... getting triggered once to... feel bad. And when I say feel bad, I mean wanna cut, think about dying, wondering if I'm ever gonna do it. I learned all the ways to pull myself out of it. It all started to slowly change. It took 2 1/2 years. [Oprah Winfrey] What are you doing in that time? [Lady Gaga] I won an Oscar. [laughs] [Oprah Winfrey] Great! [Lady Gaga] Nobody knew. [Video: Chadwick Boseman and Constance Wu present Lady Gaga, Mark Ronson, Anthony Rossomando and Andrew Wyatt with the Oscar for Best Original Song for their work on "Shallow" at the 91st Oscars in 2019: [Constance Wu] Lady Gaga, Mark Ronson, Anthony Rossomando, and Andrew Wyatt. [Lady Gaga] Thank you so much. Thank you so much to the Academy for this wonderful honor.] Everybody that's at home right now that's suffering, I would like first to say that it is so important that you surround yourself with at least one person that validates you, and when I say "validates you," that means somebody that believes you, that cares about you, and tells you that your pain matters and that it's real. Then I would say there is a way to regulate yourself. [Lady Gaga talks with Oprah Winfrey via (??) FaceTime: [Lady Gaga] Hi. [Oprah Winfrey] Hey. [Lady Gaga] How are you? [Oprah Winfrey] Hi. How are you? [Lady Gaga] How are you feeling?] If I focus, and I go, "Okay, I'm gonna wake up. I'm gonna do some therapy or grounding or gratitude and I'm gonna move my body and I'm gonna eat and I'm gonna do the things I know are healthy for me. I'm gonna play piano. I'm gonna sing a little bit. I'm gonna brush my teeth. I'm gonna make sure that I take a shower." Mindfully, everything. If I do enough of these skills in a row, if I just keep going and I go, "Stefani, be brave. You gotta be braver. It's brave to breathe. It's braver to keep going." And then I go and before I know it, I'm standing in my backyard and I-- and I go, "Okay. Okay, I'm back." I believe in eating throughout the day. I think it's really important, uh, for your brain. So I would-- I would consider this, um, a skill. Nutrition. Nutrition as I'm pouring more hot sauce on my broccoli. Is it still nutrition if your broccoli looks like this? [Laughs] I put hot sauce on everything. It's not normal. What's so interesting is the line that I walk. It's actually feeling like I wanna cut myself and feeling like I don't are actually real close together. Everybody thinks it's gotta be a straight line, that it's, like, just like, you know, every other virus, that you get sick and then you get cured, you know? It's not like that. It's just not like that. And actually, I think that traps people. It traps people because they get so frustrated. I did. You get frustrated with yourself. "Why am I not getting better? What's wrong with me?" And you know what? There's nothing wrong with you. But there is something that's not firing right. And that's something you gotta pay attention to, and also, it's not easy.