NikkieTutorials diagnosed with PTSD after being blackmailed into coming out as trans
NikkieTutorials said she has PTSD symptoms
NikkieTutorials has revealed a doctor told her she has PTSD after she was forced to come out publicly to thwart a blackmail attempt.
The YouTube make-up guru, real name Nikkie de Jager, spoke to &C about still struggling with “dark days” after the ordeal, which prompted her to come out as transgender in January.
NikkieTutorials: All my symptoms point towards PTSD.
She said: “[How I feel now] depends on how I wake up. One day I’m insecure and I don’t dare to face the world, the other day I think: F**k it. It is mostly going well, but I still have dark days now and then.
“I went to the doctor because I have trouble sleeping. ‘You have a post-traumatic stress disorder,’ he concluded. ‘Well, well, we shouldn’t make it bigger than it is,’ I said. But still: All my symptoms indicate towards PTSD.
“All I can do is give myself time to give it a place, he said. So I try that, although it is still difficult at times.”
NikkieTutorials, real name Nikkie de Jage
Make-up guru: My biggest fear was losing my channel for being trans.
The YouTuber said that she is not currently in therapy but is talking a lot with her mother and fiancé Dylan.
She said that she is “tired of myself” after months of public focus on her gender identity, adding: “Everything I said in my videos suddenly became a news item – even now. Jesus, it is all about me again.”
De Jager added of continuing her channel after coming out: “My biggest fear was that it would no longer be about my work, but about who I am. No longer about makeup, but about what used to hang between my legs.
“Fortunately, that turns out not to be the case. But I do get more personal questions than before, I still have to find a balance in that.”
Of the coronavirus lockdown, she added: “It is a bit of a switch to go from a very full to a very empty schedule. I haven’t had that in years.
“I should be in LA right now because I had won an award and was invited to the ceremony. But after the travel ban they said: we can no longer fly you in, so you have not won the award either.”
