Topless climate activist Laura Amherst took to Instagram to talk about her struggle with anxiety when she was a teenager.
The Extinction Rebellion protester, now 31, revealed that she suffered severe anxiety after a revenge porn incident when she was a school student, reported Daily Advent. Amherst, who was in news months ago for going topless at a climate protest, has urged people to ask for help for their mental health, according to Daily Star.
In a photo posted on Instagram, she wore a pink bikini top and stockings, and mentioned in the post how exposing her body wasn't always her choice. She wrote that when she was a teenager, when she became a "victim of revenge porn and it destroyed my life."
Sharing her story, she said that a group of boys decided to get her to do a sex act on a boy whom she liked. She thought she was dating him, but he was apparently just using her for sex. The boy got her to do the said act that she had no problem with as she wanted to "please him, and he told everyone at school."
She was "horrifically bullied and slut shamed." She lost most of her friends, and she had "severe anxiety." After the incident, which happened in the last year of high school, she started feeling depressed and struggled to get out of bed. She also started harming herself and was attempted to take her own life.
After leaving school, she decided to work at "Babestation" and later became a stripper. She recalled sitting in clubs and hardly talking to anyone all night, and crying on the way home. She hated herself and decided to get plastic surgery after which she got more attention and she felt “good” for some time. But she said that the "loneliness and bitterness" at what had happened to her, and not being able to talk about it properly overtook her life.
For about 10 years, she was in depression and had "severe social anxiety." She grew up with an abusive father and no real support since her grandmother died. Then one day, she decided to redo her "A-levels and go to university a bit later on." In the first year of her college, she found out that she was pregnant, which came as a massive shock to her. She had lost her mother a year prior and she was in a very "broken and lonely state."
She then told her Instagram followers that they are not alone if they are suffering this Christmas as she "gets it" as she still has insomnia, nightmares and panic attacks.
