Bruce Springsteen reveals battles with depression, suicidal thoughts

GlobalPost

Bruce Springsteen wasn't just dancing in the dark. He was also brooding there, revealing a lifelong battle with severe depression in a revealing 16,000-word New Yorker profile hitting stands this week.

At the height of his stardom in the early 1980s, "he was feeling suicidal," Dave Marsh, Springsteen's first biographer and longtime confidante, told the New Yorker.

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"The depression wasn't shocking, per se," Marsh said. "He was on a rocket ride, from nothing to something, and now you are getting your ass kissed day and night. You might start to have some inner conflicts about your real self-worth."

Even Springsteen's wife, Patti Scialfa, opened up to writer David Remnick about her husband's battles with the blues and acknowledged she shared them.

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"I suffered from depression myself, so I knew what that was about," she said. "Clinical depression, I knew what that was about. I felt very akin to him."

At times, Springsteen revealed that his infamous marathon shows were driven by "pure fear and self-loathing and self-hatred" -- more to burn himself out and keep real life at bay.

The Boss began seeing a therapist in 1982, just as his sixth studio album "Nebraska" was released.

His seventeenth studio album, "Wrecking Ball," was released in March and quickly rose to No. 1 on the Billboard charts, according to MTV.

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