Hayley Williams’ divorce from Chad Gilbert took such a toll she ended up in the hospital.
The former Paramore singer revealed the stress of their breakup manifested itself during her “f–ked” up dreams in late 2018 and caused her to have panic attacks.
“They’re pretty f–ked. There’s often water in my dreams. I’ve always written about relationships using water metaphors. My most memorable recurring dreams from childhood are all water related,” Williams, 31, explained to Vulture.
“I started to have a lot of those again. It resulted in me having panic attacks, and I ended up in a hospital. I’d faint.”
Williams and the New Found Glory rocker announced their separation in July 2017 after 16 months of marriage. She previously told The Guardian she weighed only 91 pounds amid their divorce proceedings because she “stopped eating.”
Eventually, Williams checked herself into an undisclosed facility to treat her stress.
“It’s been a slow lesson for me — how much power our emotions have on our physical health. It started to happen because I was in denial,” Williams shared. “I found a facility where I could go and be in a safe group or by myself and talk,” noting it was there that she was diagnosed with PTSD and depression.
“Talk therapy has been more important for me than medicine,” she added.
Though she’s already said she “shouldn’t have ever married” Gilbert, she’s now well aware of why she did in the first place.
“I went through with the marriage because I had a lot of shame about mistakes I’d made. I got into that relationship prematurely,” she said. “He was not divorced [from his previous wife] yet. I was very lonely.”