Cara Delevingne has discussed her mental health and her views on anti-depressants in a revealing new interview with Esquire, for whose upcoming September issue she posed nude for its front cover photoshoot.

The 23 year old model and Suicide Squad actress was put on anti-depressants at the age of 16, after she suffered what she described as a “mental breakdown” following anxiety about her schoolwork and the hormonal changes her body was experiencing.

“I was suicidal. I couldn’t deal with it anymore,” she told the publication about what she was going through as a teenager. “I realised how lucky I was and privileged I was, but all I wanted to do was die. I felt so guilty because of that and hated myself because of that, and then it’s a cycle. I didn’t want to exist anymore. I wanted for each molecule of my body to disintegrate. I wanted to die.”

However, after two years taking her prescriptions, she made the decision to stop – and she ascribes that to losing her virginity and going through a lot of other life-changing experiences that made her the person she is today.

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“That week, I lost my virginity, I got into fights, I cried, I laughed. It was the best thing in the world to feel things again.”

Thank you so much for our Skwad tracksuits @chaos @stockdalecharlotte @katielyall ?? by David Ayer

A photo posted by Cara Delevingne (@caradelevingne) on

While she still experiences problems with confidence, Delevingne now knows that she can work through them herself, in time. “I get depressed still, but I would rather learn to figure it out myself than be dependent on meds, ever. I hate meds. I don’t agree with them. It’s so easy to abuse them.”

Now, she’s in a happy relationship with her current girlfriend, American indie artist St. Vincent (real name Annie Clark). “This one feels different. When you find a real love you look back on the other loves you’ve had and you’re like, ‘Ooh, that was a bit destructive’.”

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