Kesha reveals how she once mistook her anxiety for a ‘psychotic break’

‘I just started leaning into it, I was like, ‘Well, it’s happening, so what am I going to do about it?’’ singer said about her experience with anxiety

Kesha has revealed that she once thought that she was having “a psychotic break” while struggling with anxiety.

During a recent interview with Apple Music 1’s Zane Lowe, the 36-year-old spoke of mistaking her anxiety for something worse.

“I went through this crazy psychedelic spiritual experience in the midst of the anxiety,” she said. “It was pure anxiety. My brain felt, like, I thought maybe it was the process of having a psychotic break or something.

“But then once I just started leaning into it, I was like, ‘Well, it’s happening, so what am I going to do about it?’”

She then shared how she wrote her song, “Eat the Acid”, about this experience, which she described as a “psychedelic kind of trip” while sober.

“I’m a triple Pisces, I love weird, unexplainable, spiritual, supernatural stuff,” she said, referring to her three astrological signs, sun, moon, and rising.  “It’s my rabbit hole I’m currently in, just the paranormal. And also different spirituality, with different things people believe in. I’m just trying to read about it because I feel like we’re all talking about a similar thing.”

As noted by the Mayo Clinic, while symptoms of anxiety disorders can range for everyone, some of them can include “having a sense of impending danger, panic or doom,” “feeling nervous, restless or tense”, or “having an increased heart rate”.

Kesha has been very open about her mental health challenges over the years. During an interview with Billboard in 2016, she opened up about how she’s “battled a lot of things, including anxiety and depression”.

“Finding the strength to come forward about those things is not easy. But maybe, by telling my story, I can help someone else going through tough times,” she said.

In November 2017, she wrote an essay about her mental health struggles during the holiday season, published by Time. She wrote that changing her daily habits, during the holidays, has impacted her mental health, before noting that she’s struggled with her eating disorder throughout this season.

“In so many ways, the holidays can throw you off your game — and that can shake you,” the “Cannibal” singer explained. “When you have a routine, it’s easier to manage whatever mental struggles you may be faced with, and when that routine is broken, it can trigger things you may not be ready to face. I know it has for me. Itt was during the holidays when I hit a low moment and with the help of my mother decided to seek help for my eating disorder.”