Billy Joel and His Battle with Depression

Billy Joel and His Battle with Depression Since the early seventies, Billy Joel has displayed greatness with his success in music, and has captured America with the sounds of his catchy tunes. Many accomplishments have been made, such as winning five Grammy Awards and many top ten hits in the seventies, eighties, and nineties. Joel has been successful throughout the years, but one thing he is still trying to overcome is his depression, and that is a hard thing to control. As early as ten years old, Billy has had emotional problems. His parents divorced when he was young, and his mother had many financial problems. The divorce impacted Joel in and out of school. Because of his mother having him take piano lessons, the kids bullied him because the teacher also taught ballet. The kids assumed that Joel was taking dancing lessons, so they gave him a hard time every day. He took up boxing to protect himself, but he continued to be defiant towards everyone. Because of the financial situation at home, Joel took a few jobs playing the piano at night clubs when he was in his teens. That put a strain on him because of school. He wasn’t sleeping, and that only added to his depression. When he reached adulthood, he had a few failed marriages, and he was always being criticized because of his music. His career as a song writer and singer took a down turn, so he turned to drinking. One day, the popular Billy Joel wrote a suicide note. From what I read in all the tabloids, the note said,” Tomorrow is today.” He attempted suicide by drinking an entire bottle of furniture polish. His friend found him on time, rushing him to the hospital where he remained there for thirty days. The hospital put him on suicide watch, and it was in counseling that everything that had negatively impacted his life, started coming out. Joel had told his doctor that he had felt guilty ever since he was ten years old when his parents got divorced. For no reason he had