A staple on “sexiest” lists and a sought-after model, Solenn Heussaff often appears glammed up on television and magazine covers – an image she admitted can be deceiving to many of her followers.
In her latest vlog entry released Wednesday, a bare-faced Heussaff demonstrated the long process getting made up for a shoot, from putting on makeup, attaching hair extensions, and choosing the right outfit.
Wearing a form-fitting dress and all dolled up, Heussaff said this “perfect” image is what’s often presented by people on social media, with a carefully curated Instagram feed that only shows the good times.
She then urged her followers to “keep it real,” and stop comparing themselves with the “perfect lives” they see online. Not feeling enough because of such comparison, she said, may even lead some people to getting depressed – a situation she turns out to be familiar with.
In the accompanying blog of the video, Heussaff opened up about her own past struggle with mental health. She narrated a time last year when she had to be hospitalized due to an anxiety attack.
Affected by comments about her supposed weight gain in between projects, Heussaff “went on a crazy overdrive, worked out and dieted to the extreme, tried to get as much work as I could.”
She went on: “Because of the stress I was putting on myself, I got an anxiety attack at work. I still remember that during the attack, my face looked like it was melting and I had to go to the hospital.
“I couldn’t understand what was happening to me. Clearly, more people had bigger problems than me. Yet I was still struggling mentally and emotionally, but at the same time, I didn’t think I had valid reasons to be struggling. So I didn’t want to talk to my family or my friends about it, because I was afraid to be judged and I was afraid they would get so worried.”
Heussaff eventually sought help, and managed to recover when she released “everything I was holding on to – the stress, the pain, the doubts.”
Drawing from her own experience, Heussaff encouraged readers who may have had similar struggles, to also find someone to talk to, including dedicated hotlines for those battling depression.
Circling back to her glammed up celebrity image, she concluded: “Look good for yourself. Take care of yourself, because that’s what you deserve, not because you have an ‘image’ to take care of. And if you want to share posts or photos that don’t look perfect and aren’t edited? Go ahead. Life would be so much easier and so much more fun if we weren’t focused on being perfect all the time.” (ABS-CBN News)
