Ariana Grande Wants To Remind Us It’s Okay To Take A Break

Social media tends to spotlight the highs in our lives, but Ariana Grande is getting real about the lows.

On Saturday, Grande posted a series of black-and-white photos of Jim Carrey on her Instagram stories. Along with reminiscing over being a long-time fan of Carrey’s — “my first AIM username was jimcarreyfan42 when i was in like 4th grade,” she wrote over one image — Grande included a quote of his on depression.

“Depression is your body saying, ‘I don’t want to be this character anymore. I don’t want to hold up this avatar that you’ve created in the world. It’s too much for me,’” Carrey’s quote reads. “You should think of the word ‘depressed’ as ‘deep rest.’ Your body needs to be depressed. It needs deep rest from the character you’ve been trying to play.”

Some fans have noticed that Grande has been quieter than usual on social media lately, but Grande says that between a busy tour schedule — including her performance at Coachella — and dealing with her mental health, she’s simply feeling burnt out.

“i just feel empty and i wanna have more to say / better energy to give to u and rn i don’t have anything,” she wrote on Thursday. On Saturday, in celebration of the one-year anniversary of the release of “No Tears Left To Cry,” she tweeted, “happy birthday no tears left to cry (and boy was i wrong)...i miss this time sm.”

Her Instagram stories on depression also come after a series of now-deleted tweets in which she candidly talked about the toll touring has taken on her mental health.

“honestly, it's been v hard. i have sm on my mind and it's so heavy and no energy to process or work thu any of it but i'm trying hard,” she wrote, adding that while making extremely personal music is therapeutic, performing means “reliving it all over again and it is hell.”

The negative effects of social media are widely known: it can lead to depression, ADHD, and self-harm or even suicidal tendencies. And while Grande’s mild digital detox is one way of tackling the problem head-on, so is honesty — her candidness about depression is a reminder that for every Instagram post, there’s so much more going on beneath the surface.