Dove Cameron opens up about her struggle with 'depression and dysphoria'

Emmy award-winning actor Dove Cameron is bravely and openly sharing her struggle with what she calls “depression and dysphoria” and “identity vs the self.”

In a new Instagram post that shows several shots of the “Boyfriend” singer crying (or post-sob) in a black hoodie with puffy eyes and a red face, Dove says she is trying to figure out who she is and her public persona while actively trying to “unlearn self abuse and self hatred.”

“I’ve been struggling lately with the concept of self, my inner relationship to who I know myself to be and my outer perceivable self who I feel I have never known but other people seem to, I’ve been covering mirrors lately,” she says in text screenshots on the last two slides of the post.

She continues, in part, “I’ve been feeling wrong in clothing that used to make me feel beautiful lately. I’ve been crying a lot lately, sometimes terrorized by my identity and image, sometimes in absolute flow with something new and peripheral and joyous to me.”

 “i don’t know if I’ve ever slowed down enough to learn who I am outside of the fight, flight or freeze. but the self finds ways of showing up anyway.”

The actor and singer, who in 2020 came out as “super queer,” then continues, “Sexuality and performative gender norms, societal rewards and identity are really throwing me for a loop. social media and mirrors and branding and the constant broadcasting of self and visibility of ourselves and everyone everywhere is not optimal for mental health, clarity of energy or relationship to our inner world. for any of us.”

She then stated her goal is “trying to maintain a quiet non judgmental curiosity rather than punish myself for not knowing what I’m feeling or where i’m going.”

“I don’t have any answers from myself yet,” she finished off her statement. “We all deserve a life unburdened by the societally created identity, we all deserve to unlearn self abuse and self hatred. i am on that journey now and I’m sharing so that we may all feel more comfortable in a conversation that may be confusing, and we may navigate something that feels difficult to put to words, together. human, first. the rest is all the rest. Emotion is COOL. dysphoria is OK. living as a human is INTENSE. we are all holding hands. don’t forget.”

The Liv and Maddie Disney star has previously opened up about her struggle with depression. In 2017, she tweeted that her father died by suicide when she was 15 years old, and that she changed her name to honour him (her birth name is Chloe Celeste Hosterman).

She also has opened up about her struggle to deal with the death of her The Descendants costar Cameron Boyce, telling People in 2021, “I can't find a soft place to land around it.”  Boyce died in 2019 after suffering a seizure in his sleep.

Dove was at the Inaugural Cam for a Cause Gala put on by The Cameron Boyce Foundation just hours before publishing the Instagram post. She told People at the event, "I think that Cam was the most alive person I've ever known. I think that in that, he has inspired me to be more alive, he has inspired me to be more human, more deeply feeling."

Cameron shared additional thoughts in the caption of her post, writing, “Identity vs the self !!! depression & dysphoria. the self is someone i feel i have always deeply known, someone i deeply love and protect, like my own child, i know this self and we are very close."

“for me, identity and the self have always been diametrically opposed, and there has only ever been room for one at a time to occupy my life.”

She then makes the comment that sometimes she feels as if she’s “not meant to be here,” but when it comes to her fans, she really does want to “be here with you.”  

“I am beginning to have a hope that the public platform that has been difficult for me to learn to take up space as myself in, can actually be the conduit for change/mutual support/exploration/safety,” she finalized the caption.

 “Maybe the spaces that are the least human can become the most human, if we want that, and we can all let each other take up a little more space. i love you.”

The comments section of her post from Wednesday has lit up with fans and fellow celebs alike, lauding her for her strength, bravery, and openness.

Pop artist Nicholas Tomillon wrote, “sending you so much love. you are such a beautiful soul. never forget that.”

Actress Daniela Melchior wrote, “You’re a beautiful butterfly” while singer Madison Beer added, “holding you and seeing you so deeply.” Even Kristen Chenoweth chimed in with, “Darling One. Remember: 'when the wind did not blow her way in the storm. What does she do? She adjusts her sails.'”

In 2020, Dove gave an unguarded interview to Puss Puss Magazine, where she talked about her ongoing mental health struggles after suffering the loss of her father and her best friend, and how she tries to cope.

“To be completely honest, I wake up and it’s the first thing on my mind. It’s constantly in the back of my mind in everything I do. I have to kind of be like, okay, nothing crazy is going to happen today. Like, the other shoe’s not about to drop, because a big sort of result of chronic trauma and chronic PTSD is that you always think that whatever has happened in the past is about to happen again at any given moment. So I kind of have to get myself out of that space daily by just doing stuff.”