Willow Smith is always known to be open about her mental health struggles on the platform ‘Red Table Talk,’ but her mother, Jada Pinkett Smith, didn’t always take her battle with anxiety seriously.
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Jada Pinkett Smith reveals she’s had her battles with anxiety.
The actress revealed in an April episode of ‘Red Table Talk’ about her mental health struggles and said she ‘examined’ Willow’s behavior to deal with it. She noted how her anxiety stemmed from childhood trauma and the behaviors of her mother, Adrienne Banfield-Norris, while sitting down with actress Kate Basinger and her daughter, Ireland Baldwin.
“In having to deal with, and learn about [Willow’s] anxiety, I’ve had to look at some of my own behaviors and the behaviors of my mother, and go, well of course I probably have some anxiety in regards to how I grew up,”
Pinkett-Smith also said she used to be a nail-biter but was dismissed as a bad habit. Her mother added that her generation had stigmas about mental health, and she turned to drugs to cope with her struggles.
“I think in our world, I almost saw it as a weakness. We just couldn’t afford to be anxious. I escaped through my drug abuse. Which I think numbed me to whatever was going on with you. I just didn’t want to face it, deal with anything in my life.”
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Willow Smith said her mother’s reaction to her mental health made it feel “smaller” than what it was
Smith,21, said she noticed how her mother would react to her anxiety and felt that her issues felt smaller because she’s seen her friends die throughout her lifetime. She also thought it was difficult to ask her mother for support due to the internal struggle of comparing traumas.
“It was rough. I feel like when I was growing up, she didn’t understand my anxiety. Because she, growing up, had seen her friends die — she had been through so much stuff that my issues, to her, kind of felt like … [smaller].”
She continued, “Recently, we had a talk, and she was like, ‘I never knew that I experienced anxiety. And she was pushing it down for so many years; she had no idea. So, I had to forgive her a little bit for being like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah … I get it, but it’s not that bad.'”
Jada Pinkett Smith admitted to not knowing how to raise a child under the spotlight.
In the episode, Pinkett-Smith admitted that she didn’t know how to raise a child in the spotlight since Willow’s childhood was completely different from hers.
“I had a challenging time relating because two things: her lifestyle and how she was brought up, were very different from mine. I don’t know what it’s like to be a child under hot lights.”