THE STRUGGLE WITHIN
Lockdown Your Horns initiative to the next level. But, as the Halestorm frontwoman explains, the battle for rock’s mental health is only just beginning…
WORDS: MERLIN ALDERSLADE • PICTURES: JEREMY RYAN
Lzzy Hale remembers all too well when the Black Dog first started scratching at her door. She was “around 11 or 12 years old” when she began experiencing unexplained, highly emotional panic attacks in the middle of classes. While she now recognises that mental health problems had run in her family for years - “bipolar issues, depression, PTSD and anxiety” amongst them - at the time it was a frightening experience unlike anything she’d felt before.
“It was before I really knew what the word for ‘anxiety’ was,” she recalls on a video call from her home in Nashville today. “I’d excuse myself and go figure it out, not really knowing what was going on, but knowing that I was having an episode. I remember one time I was sent home because I was really upset, and I just couldn’t explain why I was having these feelings, but I couldn’t control it. My parents didn’t know what it was either; they were just like, ‘OK, you’re just stressed about a test coming up or something!’”