All that glitters is not gold: Israeli model Nibar Madar opens up about mental health struggles

“I was finishing 12th grade, after several years of self-employment I had finally gained some confidence,” Nabar tells us in the star of our interview. “I was bullied a lot throughout my life and suffered from all kinds of attention deficit issues… My dad heard a lot of comments about me and how pretty I was and decided this was a good path to explore at the end of it. high school. He thoroughly explored all the options until he settled on an agency, and only told me after they had told him they wanted to look me up. I didn’t want him to experience any disappointment or sadness.”

Madar went on to build a successful career in Israel and abroad. Her first job was as a model for the Israeli fashion retailer Renuar. She then went on to model for magazines like Vogue, Elle and Marie Claire, and today she is the leading model for Bloomingdales, an American chain of luxury department stores.

Madar lives what appears to be the perfect life, and he maintained this facade until recently, when he exposed his battle with chronic depression to the public. “I experienced depression as a child and I never talked about it, not with my parents or anyone else.”

When asked if being bullied had anything to do with this, she wasn’t sure. “That’s a good question. I wasn’t diagnosed early [with depression] Due to the lack of awareness of mental health at the time, that question was never asked.”

Madar says that as a child she felt a lot of “sadness”. “I didn’t want to get out of bed. I was constantly thinking about what I could do to avoid getting up completely. I didn’t want to leave the house. I wasn’t in a position to tell my parents. I was perceived by society as weird and lazy, not depressed. There was no awareness at the time, my parents had no idea either. I understand. Who would have thought I was going through something? Today, I talk about it a lot because it can save a lot of people.

“A child can be lost in a second. A teenager or an adult. It’s such a slippery slope to suicidal thoughts. And I had a lot of those. I didn’t try to do anything, but I checked what pills I could take.” to die. During COVID, I had thoughts of hurting myself, cutting myself and seeing blood, which is the scariest thing in the world. I decided to talk about it so that people know how to identify the warning. signals.”

In response to being asked if he feared this kind of exposure would damage his career, Madar said the importance of the issue overwhelmed all fears. “People don’t have to be ashamed of being depressed. There are solutions and, if treated right, you can have a perfectly normal and beautiful life.”

Regarding the diagnosis, Madar shared that “the psychiatrists dug deeper and then I understood that I needed help beyond the conversations. I was afraid of myself. I went to the psychiatrist and he diagnosed me with chronic depression. This took a lot of weight off my chest.” In short, validation of what I am feeling, I am not screwed, there is a diagnosis, it has a name.

“Because weight comments are embedded in the modeling field, I also had an emotional eating problem. I would overeat. I might come home and go through the entire fridge. I discussed this with the psychiatrist and started taking a low dose. of fluoxetine, an antidepressant that also treats eating disorders. Over time, I increased my dose and added another anti-anxiety medication: lorazepam.”

After becoming more balanced through medication, Madar says she saw positive changes in all aspects of her life. “I was balanced all of a sudden. Things weren’t so extreme anymore, the world wasn’t against me, and I deserve good things. Today, I’m emotionally available for the things that threatened me back then. I can call my mom and say, ‘Hi. Mom, how are you?’, getting out of bed and meeting my friends, pursuing fields that used to scare me, like acting class.”

Madar describes how medical treatment helped her gain emotional stability that allowed her to establish a healthy relationship after years of dating men who mirrored her instability. “I dated men 40 and up when I was 20-21. I looked for a figure to hold me, someone who was already stable in her thoughts and who knew what she was doing in life.

“I still don’t know who I am,” says Madar as she describes what she learned about herself during this period. “I’m in the process of exploring myself, but I believe in myself more and don’t let background noise silence my dreams.”

Madar has experienced complicated relationships with food and exercise. “Even before the problems with food, I was told that I should be active for the sake of my emotional state,” she says, “and I say: all these years I danced every day, since I was five years old. How did it help me? this? “I was always depressed. It wasn’t until I was 17 that everything I ate started to influence my body because I wasn’t burning energy or exercising consistently, and then my body started to change. When my body transitioned from a girl’s body to a woman’s, that’s when the comments about my body size and measurements started, down to the centimeter.

“I got tired of this obsession that lasted years. I went to all kinds of nutritionists and physical trainers, but nothing got stuck because of the emotional binge, I had a hard time balancing myself. At the same time I suffered from loneliness and depression, and even when I reached my goal and was skinny with good measurements, I still wasn’t skinny enough for them. At this point I really lost motivation, and because of this today I still don’t have the habit of a healthy eating routine or obsessive exercise… I eat healthier because I know what is healthy, but in my eyes, despite Of all the studies, I need to eat what makes me feel good. I let my soul decide what is good for my body. I let myself eat pasta, because in my experience binge eating occurs when I eat what I don’t want, I think I look better than ever and I feel great, mental health is above everything.

She says that contrary to stereotypes about models, she does not exclusively like or eat salads. “I have an anti-salad perspective because of modeling. Even if I’m on a diet, salad is out of the question… Today I don’t have a special passion for a sport. In general, I like yoga, pilates, and dancing. But I don’t practice constantly.”

Madar ended our interview by expressing his thoughts on the relationship between modeling careers and depression with a few words of inspiration.

“I think depression doesn’t choose a career. It doesn’t eliminate or encourage a certain career. There are triggers in life. You can do anything with depression, you can live with it. Everything is achievable, you don’t go away.” or chose a career because of depression. It does not decide for you what to choose, only you do it.”