Emma Heming Willis has spoken about the affect Bruce Willis’ brain disorder has had on her mental health
(Picture: Getty Images for Film at Lincoln)Bruce Willis’ wife has admitted that she is struggling in the wake of his aphasia diagnosis.
Emma Heming Willis issued a joint statement earlier this year along with his ex-wife, Demi Moore, and the former couple’s daughters — Rumer, 33, Scout, 30, and Tallulah, 28, disclosing that the Die Hard star would be retiring from acting due to the brain disorder.
The model – who shares daughters Mabel, 10, and Evelyn, 8, with the 67-year-old – has now spoken about the toll it has taken on her own mental health.
In a new interview, the 43-year-old told The Bump: “I struggle with making the time for self-care every day. I put my family’s needs above my own, which I found does not make me any kind of hero.
“That amount of care for everyone else within my household had taken a toll on my mental health and overall health. And it served no one in my family.”
The CocoBaba founder added that she’s now learning how to “mother” herself and being intentional about “making the time for self-care” daily including exercise.
She explained: “Someone told me not long ago that when you over-care for someone, you end up under-caring for yourself. That stopped me in my tracks and really resonated with me.
“I don’t mother myself perfectly but I know that I have some basic baseline needs that are a must, like first and foremost, exercise. It’s a time I can disconnect and can do something that I know makes me feel good overall,” she continued.
“I think it’s important to find that one thing that makes you feel good and build from there.”
The NHS defines aphasia as when "a person has difficulty with their language or speech,” the condition is "usually caused by damage to the left side of the brain (for example, after a stroke).”
It affects "the four main ways people understand and use language", reading, listening, speaking and writing or typing.
In the interview, Heming Willis also spoke about making memories as a family, how “time is precious” and the importance of not taking it for granted.
She said: “The girls bring so much love, laughter, and life into our home. For us as a family it’s always been about making memories. I’m not even sure we have rituals or traditions. We just love spending time with each other and we know that time is precious, and I don’t take that for granted.”
