{"id":239181,"date":"2025-10-25T12:26:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T12:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/239181\/"},"modified":"2025-10-25T12:26:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T12:26:08","slug":"mental-health-is-that-one-battle-which-defeats-fame-wealth-or-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/239181\/","title":{"rendered":"Mental health is that one battle which defeats fame, wealth or success"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dubai: Let\u2019s be clear: mental health<\/a> doesn\u2019t check your last name before it enters a room. It doesn\u2019t pause because your father is a television personality, your grandfather a politician, or your future seemingly golden. It is the great equaliser <\/a>\u2014 silent, relentless, and unmoved by privilege. <\/p>\n

The death of 19-year-old Emmanuelle \u201cEmman\u201d Atienza <\/a>\u2014 a young woman born into influence, educated in elite institutions, and open about her own struggles \u2014 is no longer just a personal tragedy. It is a national wake-up call.<\/p>\n

Privilege is not protection<\/p>\n

Emman didn\u2019t fit necessarily fit the convenient narrative of someone \u201cat risk.\u201d She was surrounded by family, resources, therapy, even advocacy networks. She wasn\u2019t hiding her mental health battles; she was vocal, articulate, and actively trying to help others. She founded Mentality Manila, a youth movement for mental health awareness. She was studying in Los Angeles, pursuing art and design. And yet, she still lost her life to suicide.<\/p>\n

Because awareness is not immunity. Access is not cure. Visibility is not safety. Mental illness does not negotiate \u2014 not with class, not with fame, not with family background.<\/p>\n

But here’s the reality: We like to applaud people who \u201craise awareness,\u201d but what we often do is outsource emotional labor to them. Young voices like Emman become accidental mental health ambassadors. They don\u2019t just speak for themselves \u2014 they become sounding boards for thousands. Every post becomes a lifeline for someone else. But lifelines, too, fray under pressure.<\/p>\n

There is a difference between speaking about mental health and surviving it.<\/p>\n

And when a person becomes both advocate and patient \u2014 while also being hyper-visible online \u2014 the pressure is inescapable.<\/p>\n

Fame doesn\u2019t dilute trauma \u2014 It amplifies it<\/p>\n

Let’s also talk about the occupational hazard we face as journalists who write about such grim and macabre news. They often become a statistic to us. In the heat of getting the tragedy up online first, we forget to care and that reality bites after we get all the clicks and adrenaline rush subsides!<\/p>\n

But my job often places me on a raw nerve \u2014 sitting opposite celebrities as they unravel their deepest truths. Pop idol Jason Derulo once told me he lost the will to fight after a spinal injury left him unable to walk or shower alone. Deepika Padukone described mornings when the weight of depression made waking up feel unbearable. Tanushree Dutta named her predators and described an industry that looked away.<\/p>\n

These are not headlines \u2014 these are dents in the human psyche. And Emman was part of that same fragile ecosystem: visible, articulate, praised for her honesty \u2014 and still deeply alone in the quiet corners of her mind.<\/p>\n

When the story followed me home<\/p>\n

The day I covered Emman\u2019s death was already heavy. A day ago, news covered by my wonderful peer broke about another 19-year-old boy \u2014 this time in Dubai \u2014 who died unexpectedly of cardiac arrest. Two young lives, two abrupt endings, both gone before life had even begun.<\/p>\n

I finished filing a series of stories on Emman, drove home, and found my own daughter \u2014 14, bright, sensitive, endlessly scrolling on her phone. And something inside me sank.<\/p>\n

Not panic. A realization.<\/p>\n

I sat her down. Not to terrify her \u2014 but to tell her: Do not hand your self-worth to strangers on the internet. <\/p>\n

Do not confuse validation with identity. Do not believe that you must be seen to exist.<\/p>\n

We had a real conversation \u2014 the kind parents avoid because it feels too early, too heavy, too real. But what Emman\u2019s death shows us is that too early is exactly the time to have it. The danger isn’t only in the depths; it\u2019s in the illusion that everything is fine because everything looks fine.<\/p>\n

Gen Z is not living online \u2014 They are existing there<\/p>\n

For this digital-native generation, the internet is not a platform. It is a mirror. It reflects back not who they are, but how they are perceived. Every opinion is a poll. Every photo is a referendum. Every vulnerability is content.<\/p>\n

And when the applause fades or turns into hostility \u2014 as it did when Emman was criticised over a viral dinner bill clip \u2014 the consequences aren\u2019t reputational. They are existential. This is not hypothetical. This is happening.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t just a family\u2019s loss:<\/p>\n

We cannot treat Emman\u2019s death as an isolated tragedy. It is the culmination of every warning we have ignored.<\/p>\n

This generation does not need more motivational quotes. They need:<\/p>\n

Systems that treat mental health like healthcare, not content.<\/p>\n

Parents who are present offline \u2014 not just policing screen time, but providing emotional anchors.<\/p>\n

A society willing to confront that privilege does not protect against pain \u2014 sometimes it isolates you further within it.<\/p>\n

Mental health is the great equaliser. It dismantles the myth that success, influence, or a \u201cperfect\u201d life protects you. If anything, it reveals that without internal stability, external cushioning is meaningless.<\/p>\n

Emman\u2019s death is not simply heartbreaking. It is instructive.<\/p>\n

The real question is no longer: How could this happen?<\/p>\n

The real question is: Now that it has \u2014 will we finally do something?<\/p>\n

\"Manjusha<\/a><\/p>\n

Manjusha Radhakrishnan has been slaying entertainment news and celebrity interviews in Dubai for 18 years\u2014and she\u2019s just getting started. As Entertainment Editor, she covers Bollywood movie reviews, Hollywood scoops, Pakistani dramas, and world cinema. <\/p>\n

Red carpets? She\u2019s walked them all\u2014Europe, North America, Macau\u2014covering IIFA (Bollywood Oscars) and Zee Cine Awards like a pro. She\u2019s been on CNN with Becky Anderson dropping Bollywood truth bombs like Salman Khan Black Buck hunting conviction and hosted panels with directors like Bollywood\u2019s Kabir Khan and Indian cricketer Harbhajan Singh. She has also covered film festivals around the globe. <\/p>\n

Oh, and did we mention she landed the cover of Xpedition Magazine as one of the UAE\u2019s 50 most influential icons? <\/p>\n

She was also the resident Bollywood guru on Dubai TV\u2019s Insider Arabia and Saudi TV, where she dishes out the latest scoop and celebrity news. Her interview roster reads like a dream guest list\u2014Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Shah Rukh Khan, Robbie Williams, Sean Penn, Deepika Padukone, Alia Bhatt, Joaquin Phoenix, and Morgan Freeman. <\/p>\n

From breaking celeb news to making stars spill secrets, Manjusha doesn\u2019t just cover entertainment\u2014she owns it while looking like a star herself. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dubai: Let\u2019s be clear: mental health doesn\u2019t check your last name before it enters a room. It doesn\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[49,48,112727,112728,84,393,394,112729],"class_list":{"0":"post-239181","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-filipino-artists","11":"tag-filipino-celebrities","12":"tag-health","13":"tag-mental-health","14":"tag-mentalhealth","15":"tag-philippine-idols"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}