Carnie Wilson Reveals Her Best Advice for Navigating Mental Health Struggles, Feeling ‘Hopelessness’

Carnie Wilson is no stranger to navigating mental health struggles.

In an exclusive interview, the Wilson Phillips singer, 58, speaks candidly about growing up around mental illness — “my father [Beach Boys cofounder Brian Wilson, who died in June 2025] was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and my grandma had pretty gnarly depression,” she explains — before facing her own struggles, including depression and addiction.

“As I’ve gotten older, [to] have been through so much, I can’t sit with my own emotions too much,” Carnie — who, in 2024, celebrated two decades of abstaining from drinking — tells First for Women. “I like to reach my hand out and connect with people because it helps me feel better too.”

That drive to help others is why Carnie raises awareness for people living with tardive dyskinesia (TD), an involuntary movement disorder associated with the use of antipsychotic medications, as part of the Connecting With Carnie initiative.

Though she doesn’t suffer from TD herself, “I’ve never hid what I’ve gone through, but I think people that have mental illness and TD, they feel this shame and the loneliness that I relate to,” the mom of two — who shares daughters Lola and Luci with husband Robert Bonfiglio — explains. “It’s hard for people that there’s this stigma that is still there.”

Still, advocating on behalf of others doesn’t mean all of her bad days are in the rearview, either.

“Every day is different. Because of my sobriety, my program is one day at a time. I have to just know that one day I might wake up and be like, ‘The sky’s falling, everything sucks, I’m scared of everything’ and some days I wake up and I’m like, ‘I feel really good today, I got a good sleep,’” Carnie explains. “I know this sounds silly, but I’m trying to challenge myself more to face my fears.”

On the morning of Carnie’s interview with First for Women — mere days before Mental Illness Awareness Week, which runs October 4 to October 10, kicks off — she did just that: walking up a “massive” hill in Nashville that initially gave her immediate “anxiety.”

“One of my fears … is walking up hills and just being really physical because I’m just so out of shape,” Carnie, who detailed her issues with body image and weight loss journey in 2001’s I’m Still Hungry, admits. “I know it sounds so silly, but I’m really proud that I did it. It wasn’t bad.”

“It was my own fear getting in the way. That’s what I suffer from — [a] voice in my head that says, ‘You can’t do something,’ and then I challenged myself and I did,” the singer-songwriter continues. “I have to be my own advocate sometimes and tell myself I can do something when I’m too scared.”

“That applies to so many things with people, noticing things about themselves. But when they don’t speak up, when I don’t speak up, when I am in my loneliness, that’s when nothing gets done, that’s when things get worse, and you feel that hopelessness,” Carnie says.

With October, Depression Awareness Month, upon us, Carnie is also sharing her hacks for when bad days hit: “I check in with myself. I pray. I take baths. I try to drink a lot of water. I spend time with my children [and] I try to make the days really meaningful.”

For the former Carnie! host — who has spent most of her life in the spotlight — speaking about the challenges she has faced publicly has only served to make her mind, body and spirit stronger.

“I think it’s very courageous to admit that you are vulnerable [and] it’s courageous to say that you need help. That, to me, is so brave,” she tells First for Women. “I know what it’s like to be in a dark place, and I know what it’s like to turn that around.”

“If we can make a difference,” she adds of using her platform to help “empower” others, “then I sleep well at night.”