A lot of people are outspoken about what they live with. Reading them does not treat anything, but it does something worth having: it makes clear that a diagnosis is not a verdict on who you are or what you can do.

Some of what follows touches on sexual violence, addiction and self-harm, in the words the people themselves used. Nothing below is graphic.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder

Leonardo DiCaprio, actor

“I remember my make-up artist and assistant walking me to the set and going, ‘Oh, God, here he goes again. We're going to need 10 minutes to get him to the set today because he has to walk back and step on that thing and touch the door in a certain way and then walk in and walk out again.’ I let myself do it because I wanted that to come out.”

DiCaprio was describing deliberately letting his OCD symptoms run while playing Howard Hughes, and how much harder they were to rein back in afterwards.

Read the interview (Mentality Magazine)

Anxiety

Shawn Mendes, singer

“All pain is temporary. Sometimes it lasts two hours, sometimes it lasts a day and sometimes it lasts five minutes… no matter how long that lasts, you can come out the other end stronger.”

Read the article (Teen Vogue)

Bipolar disorder

Demi Lovato, singer

“I went into treatment and I was able to work with incredible doctors who helped me figure out that I was, in fact, bipolar. It was a great feeling to find out that there wasn't anything wrong with me. I just had a mental illness.”

Read the article (Women's Health)

Editor’s note: Lovato shared this after her 2011 diagnosis. In her 2021 documentary Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil, she said she had since been told she was likely misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder at 18. We have kept her earlier words as she said them, and added this for context.

Mariah Carey, singer

“Until recently I lived in denial and isolation and in constant fear someone would expose me. It was too heavy a burden to carry and I simply couldn't do that anymore. I sought and received treatment, I put positive people around me and I got back to doing what I love — writing songs and making music.”

Read the article (People)

ADHD

Michael Phelps, swimmer

“I simply couldn't sit still, because it was difficult for me to focus on one thing at a time. I had to be in the middle of everything.”

From his book Beneath the Surface. He had trouble with inattention as early as kindergarten.

Read the article (Understood)

Borderline personality disorder

Pete Davidson, comedian and actor

“It's steps, it's thought processing, you have these thoughts, you have these feelings, you have these urges, you're going to freak out. Try waiting it out 10 minutes. Try going for a walk.”

“When people say they're leaving and coming back, I get a really big fear that they're not coming back.”

The first quote is Davidson describing dialectical behavior therapy, which is the same distress tolerance idea taught on our DBT skills page.

Read the article (The Mighty)

Alcohol use

Daniel Radcliffe, actor

Radcliffe has spoken about turning to alcohol to cope with fear of failure and with fame, and about stopping in 2010 because the drinking had become, in his words, unhealthy and damaging.

Read the article (The Guardian)

Sources

  1. Mentality Magazine — Speak Out Sunday: Leonardo DiCaprio (confirmed to contain the quote, September 2026)
  2. Teen Vogue — Shawn Mendes shares how he copes with anxiety (confirmed to contain the quote, September 2026)
  3. Women's Health — Demi Lovato speaks up about living with bipolar disorder (confirmed to contain the quote, September 2026)
  4. People — Mariah Carey: my battle with bipolar disorder (confirmed to contain the quote, September 2026)
  5. Understood — How Michael Phelps' ADHD helped him make Olympic history (confirmed to contain the quote, September 2026)
  6. The Mighty — Pete Davidson gives an inside look at the ‘manipulation’ associated with BPD (confirmed to contain both quotes, September 2026)
  7. The Guardian — Daniel Radcliffe: I turned to alcohol to cope with fear of failure and fame (confirmed, September 2026)

Sources were last checked September 2026. Every source links to the exact document cited, never a homepage.