Zayn Malik is really branching out in many directions (that wasn’t supposed to be a pun but then I read it and now I’ve decided to leave it). Obviously, he’s a singer with a successful solo career, he’s a fashion designer and now an author. His book, ZAYN, is due out today. The description says it’s “a photographic journey of his life since leaving One Direction,” which was a year and a half ago. Although that seems like a pretty short timeline to document, it’s more what he is documenting than how much. As has been reported, Zayn suffers from anxiety issues and has had to pull out of a few performances as a result. But when his anxiety made it impossible to perform at the Capital Summertime Ball last June, he decided to be up front with his fans and tell them exactly why he was canceling. You can read his announcement here. In his book, Zayn explains that the reason he chose to be honest was for his fans who also suffer from anxiety.

I just couldn’t go through with it. Mentally, the anxiety had won. Physically, I knew I couldn’t function. I would have to pull out.

One of my team members offered to write a statement saying that I’d been taken ill, but I didn’t want to do that. I was done with putting out statements that masked what was really going on. I wanted to tell the truth. Anxiety is nothing to be ashamed of; it affects millions of people every day.

I know I have fans out there who have been through this kind of thing, too, and I wanted to be honest for their sake, if nothing else. When I was in One Direction, my anxiety issues were huge but, within the safety net of the band, they were at least manageable. As a solo performer, I felt much more exposed, and the psychological stress of performing had just gotten to be too much for me to handle—at that moment, at least. Rather than hiding away, sugar-coating it, I knew I had to put it all out there.

[From Time]

You can read the full excerpt here. It’s obviously very emotional for Zayn and quite brave of him to lay himself bare like that. Especially since he said that even after he was completely honest, some people, including many within the industry, still had doubts about his motives. Fortunately, he has also received an outpouring of compassion and others reaching out to him who suffer from the same.

I found what he said about that the band being a safety net for his anxiety interesting. That must have been a terrible realization after his departure from One Direction. Later in the excerpt, Zayn says it’s further frustrating for him to cancel his performances because he loves performing. Not only is he letting his fans and business folk down, but also he can’t indulge in the addictive buzz of performing live. Like anything, the more that is said, the more spotlight shed on any disorder, the more we remove the stigma surrounding it. Someone who does not suffer from a disorder may never truly understand what that struggle is like but I think if we can just move to a place of empathy, we will all be so much better off as a society. Of course, handling something like anxiety is aways improved with a strong support network. In addition to his family, Zayn has girlfriend Gigi Hadid who seems to really have his back on this. I hope they both continue to champion this cause.

Photo credit: WENN Photos