The Hayden Panettiere death hurts.
I think because she was one of those faces we watched grow up. The cheerleader on Heroes who needed saving and somehow became the one who could save the world. Then Juliette Barnes on Nashville: hot-tempered, complicated, enormously talented, singing her way through addiction, motherhood, heartbreak and recovery.
And now she’s gone at 36.
Of course every death is sad. But there is a particular ache in losing someone so young, someone who had already lived so much life and endured so much pain. Hayden was open about postpartum depression, addiction, alcoholism, anxiety and the heartbreak of giving up custody of her daughter while trying to get well. Those aren’t character flaws. They are signs of someone who was hurting.
As a psychologist who works around addiction, one of the hardest things to watch is someone trying to medicate unbearable pain with substances and sometimes being surrounded by people or circumstances that make recovery harder rather than easier. Addiction doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Neither does recovery.
And there is something especially haunting about Nashville. Hayden later described how painfully close Juliette’s storyline came to her own life. She was sometimes essentially asked to perform her own wounds for an audience. Imagine trying to heal while reading a script that keeps handing you a version of your own pain.
I hope we can remember Hayden for more than the struggle.
The little girl who became a star. The fierce cheerleader. The singer. The complicated, funny, talented woman. The mother who loved her daughter. The person who kept trying.
Sometimes the people we watched on television become tangled up with our own lives. We don’t really know them, but somehow we grew up alongside them.
And when they die too young, it feels like losing a little piece of the world we thought would still be there.
Rest in peace, Hayden. You deserved more time.
Categories: mental health, current events, Psychology, Celebrity, Pop Culture, Culture, society
psychologistmimi 
Indeed she did.
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Thank you. Very moving and very true.
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SMiLes Dear Miriam Hayden Panettiere
Came Along as a ‘Hero’ Who Could
Naturally Heal Herself from Any
Human Trauma Indeed on the
TV Show “Heroes” back in 2006
A Dream First Seen at Disney World
back in 1995 our First Plasma HDTV Screen
at the Beginning of my Descent and eventual
Fall into the BLacK Abyss for 66 Months in January of 2008
Yet already in 2006 so strange i couldn’t bear to touch the floor
With the Nerve Pain in my Feet and as Much as i Loved the Hope that
the Show ‘Heroes’ Brought in my Decent to Hell then slowly i was losing
the Ability to Tolerate Colors on the Screen Slowly Falling to Type Two
Trigeminal Neuralgia Years
Later with the Diagnosis
of Sjogren’s Syndrome First
Attacking the Nerves in my Feet
And There the Cheerleader
Hayden on the TV Show Who
Could Regenerate Herself from any
Injury
of Life
Perhaps there was
Hope for me then too
yet fading fading fading
slowly
into the
BLAcK Abyss of
Numb and Pain for Real
Seeing Her in that Show Made
it Harder to Believe She Suffered
So Much From Demons Within For it is
True i surely Know Feel and Sense There
Are Hallways Within that even Demons Fear to Tread
For True if they
Could Get Through
they Might Graduate
Beyond Demons for Real on this Earth
So Many Invisible disabilities that Others Who
Do Not Suffer From them within cannot understand
Yes True Several Members of both my Family and my
Wife’s Family didn’t make it alive out of the Disease
of Addiction
often an attempt
at escaping the BLacK Abyss
of Numb and Pain Within When
Life Becomes too Much of a Challenge
And Sadly
What Kills
You Just Kills
You with never a
way out to become
Stronger
Survive
And Even
Thrive Fortunate are
those Who Always have
Lifelines to Hold Up Their
Sinking Float
or at least
Do Their
Best while
We Tread Water this way
Like so many Arts that touch
Our Waves of Life both Troughs
And Crests
She Brought
a Unique Art
of a Hero to
the Screen for me to relate
And Indeed Remember for
i found
the Keys
to Escape
The BLacK Abyss
And Really Finally
Regenerating Yes Reborn
Breathing in Thriving Ease
Dancing
Singing
Free
With
SMiLes…
And Yes “Happy Feet”
Now As ironically that was the
Movie we were watching too in 2006
With my Feet Propped up above the Earth
Now i Kiss
the Earth
With every
Touch of my
New Twinkling Toes…
Some Days Some Seconds A
Most Heroic event oF all just Survive
Yes And Then the Miracle Do Thrive..:)
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