Chiara de Blasio Pens Essay For XO Jane. Opens Up About Her Struggles With Depression and Addiction and Her Recovery.

Chiara de Blasio
(Patrick Smith / Getty Images News)


Chiara de Blasio, the First Daughter of New York City, has been pretty candid about her past struggles with depression and drug addiction. She recently penned a really beautiful, personal essay about what it means to suffer from the diseases of addiction and depression.

Several months ago, I watched the documentary Happy (by director Roko Belic). It explained how 50 percent of our happiness is determined by genetic predisposition, 10 percent is determined by external conditions (our health, our relationship status, our house, our neighborhood, our car, our friends), and 40 percent is determined by “intentional action”. As a young woman who is still getting her footing in a confusing and often scary world, I frequently need other people’s words to help me describe what I am feeling. Happy summed it up quite perfectly.

Because, as you see, for my entire adolescence, I was miserable. Sure, there were happy moments, hours, days, weeks, or even months! But over the years, little to nothing changed. The way I saw it, the only change was that things were getting worse. That is the 50 percent genetic predisposition. As the only person who can diagnose myself, I believe that I was born with the disease of addiction.

Read the entire essay at xoJane.