{"id":543284,"date":"2026-03-25T00:05:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T00:05:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/543284\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T00:05:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T00:05:19","slug":"im-still-coming-to-terms-with-it-rebecca-gibney-reveals-very-emotional-health-diagnosis-following-years-of-panic-attacks-and-crippling-anxiety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/543284\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;I&#8217;m still coming to terms with it&#8217;: Rebecca Gibney reveals &#8216;very emotional&#8217; health diagnosis following years of panic attacks and crippling anxiety"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Rebecca Gibney has been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The actress &#8211; who was inducted into the Logies Hall of Fame in 2024 &#8211; sat down with Australian Women&#8217;s Weekly to share the details of her shock health discovery, admitting that she is &#8220;still coming to terms&#8221; with the diagnosis.<\/p>\n<p>The 61-year-old dubbed the last few months &#8220;hard&#8221; and &#8220;very emotional&#8221;, before revealing how she found out about her condition last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"poster-img\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/b2d05adaa0d932d67fe76585b94f7cf0.jpeg\" data-sctrack=\"op-poster-img\" alt=\"Queen Mary and King Frederik's royal visit to Uluru\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve cried a lot more in the last few months than I&#8217;ve cried in a long time, which I thought I&#8217;d gotten over as a woman over 60. I was like, &#8216;No, I&#8217;ve got all that stuff sorted&#8217;.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>According to Gibney, she was diagnosed by her psychologist after having some &#8220;major struggles&#8221; on Dancing With The Stars last July.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Since then, the New Zealand-born star has admitted she&#8217;s still getting to grips with the diagnosis, despite her new label explaining a lot of her past behaviours.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m still coming to terms with it because it&#8217;s answered a lot of questions from my past &#8211; my panic attacks, my years of masking, which started obviously at a very early age,&#8221; she shared.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"poster-img\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/5f69d8eb1b10e4321c4e7033cb17c67d.jpeg\" data-sctrack=\"op-poster-img\" alt=\"Petition against Harry and Meghan\u2019s tone-deaf Australia visit making waves online\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/><\/p>\n<p>However, Gibney can&#8217;t help but wonder what life would have been like if she had been diagnosed earlier.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s that slight mourning \u2013 gosh, if I\u2019d known this 40, 50 years ago, would I have gone through all the stuff that I went through?&#8221; she questioned.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This isn&#8217;t the first time Gibney has opened up about her lifelong mental health battle.<\/p>\n<p>In November last year, the Millionaire Hot Seat host opened up about her panic attacks and crippling anxiety on social media, adding that she&#8217;d struggled with them &#8220;for most of my life&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As a teen, I was often erratic, impulsive, prone to rages and bored easily,&#8221; she wrote in an Instagram post.<\/p>\n<p>Gibney went on to confess that her mental health struggles saw her leave high school at the age of 15, only to fall into acting by chance.<\/p>\n<p>By her early 30s, Gibney admitted that, despite having a &#8220;thriving career&#8221;, &#8220;solid family&#8221;, and &#8220;extraordinary friendships&#8221;, she was mentally spiralling.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The weekly panic attacks became daily, then hourly,&#8221; she wrote.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"poster-img\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/493f5b444f85a26cee459ff817aa4651.jpeg\" data-sctrack=\"op-poster-img\" alt=\"Kyle Sandilands\u2019 contract terminated by ARN\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The self-loathing was constant and my pain was so deep, I didn&#8217;t know how to deal with it. I just knew I wanted it over.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>She went on to reveal she got help and &#8220;eventually came home to myself&#8221;, encouraging others experiencing a rough patch to lean on people.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We all mask our pain but we all also feel it. You&#8217;re not alone,&#8221; she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Light really does follow the dark.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rebecca Gibney has been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD).\u00a0 The actress&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":543285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[3796,242783,1490,97,259,242782,260,160512],"class_list":["post-543284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-adhd","tag-australian-womens-weekly","tag-autism","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-mental-health-diagnosis","tag-mentalhealth","tag-rebecca-gibney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}