'I hate the phrase mental health, as applied to me...' Shirley Manson says depression can be a 'healthy part of existing'
Shirley Manson - frontwoman of Garbage - believes her bouts of depression are a 'healthy part of existing in the world'.
Garbage frontwoman Shirley Manson hates "the phrase mental health" and believes it is "nonsense" that people should "permanently ecstatic".
The 58-year-old Scottish singer experienced bouts of depression during the '90s after the band - which also includes drummer and songwriter Butch Vig, who produced Nirvana's 1991 iconic album 'Nevermind' - became globally successful with their self-titled debut LP.
Her feelings of self-loathing were based on critiques of her appearance, but Shirley insists feeling unhappy or depressed are normal emotions in life, not something to be cured.
In an interview with The Guardian newspaper, she said: "I hate the phrase ‘mental health’, as applied to me.
"I have a very healthy psyche. I’m pretty tough, mentally. I have definitely suffered from bouts of depression. I see that as a healthy part of existing in the world. I think it’s really necessary. I think all this nonsense about us permanently having to feel ecstatic is silly.”
Explaining how the glare of non-stop attention fame brings affected her, Shirley added: "The problem with a lot of success is it comes with a lot of visual accompaniment. Your self is reflected back at you on every magazine.
"Some versions are gorgeous and fantastical and you look nothing like yourself – maybe there’s a small semblance of you in the eyes. And then there are incredibly unflattering ones … I wasn’t the right personality to deal with that. I found it repulsive. I didn’t get an iota of pleasure out of it. I felt that, if I was good enough, I would look like that image. But I don’t, so they have to augment it with lights and makeup and hair and stylists and nail manicurists. It really did a number on my self-esteem.”
The 'Stupid Girl' singer also experienced depression when Garbage went on hiatus in the mid-2000s following the release of the group's fourth album 'Bleed Like Me' and Shirley's mother Muriel was diagnosed with dementia, eventually dying from the neurodegenerative disease.
She explained: "I was very depressed. Watching my mother die was the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life, and my career had stalled.
"I had to make a choice to pull myself out and up, into my life. I just started saying to myself, ‘You are an artist. You do this for a living. You’ve done it very successfully, and you can do it again. So let’s just go and start writing music and being musical, doing the work, filling it with love and interest and passion and having an idea of where it’s going.’ I never believed I was an artist until my mother died. I felt it was her last gift to me.”
Garbage release their eighth studio album 'Let All That We Imagine Be the Light' on May 30, 2025.
