In a video message on Instagram, Eddie Van Halen’s widow Janie revealed the PTSD diagnosis after his death.
“Hey everybody, happy Wednesday. It’s Janie and Pepper,” she started her words. “Yesterday I put a press release out for a new client, Garnish Music LA. They are offering free music classes to students 14 to 18 years of age that have been impacted by the recent wildfires here in Southern California.”
Janie continued, “Today I wanted to give you a little background of my own experience with Garnish Music. Several years ago, I was at the darkest point in time of my life. After experiencing a lot of significant loss in a very short amount of time, I was diagnosed with extreme and long-term PTSD and anxiety.”
“I was having all the emotions. I was pissed, I was mad, I was sad, I was depressed, angry,” she shared. “And by having to show up somewhere and actually focus on something besides everything that was going on in my head and to get lost in the music gave me a form of therapy I don’t think I could have gotten anywhere else.”
Janie went on to talk about how music helped her, “It really helped in the recovery of some of these things that I was experiencing.”
Janie said in 2021 that she was ‘doing the best’ she could five months after Eddie’s death. She had also lost her brother and mother. She told NewsRadio 840 WHAS, via Blabbermouth, “I’m doing the best I can. I have okay days; I have sad, bad days; but you just have to kind of keep moving.”
“And the things that I post [on social media] as inspiration for other people, I actually post for myself as well to kind of keep going, keep moving forward. My dance partner also had two losses almost at the same time — his dad, and then his sister’s boyfriend. So we kind of support each other in our loss and our grief,” she added.
Janie also noted, “And it helps — it definitely helps. And then, obviously, my family members and friends — close friends. I do the best I can. It’s not so easy, though.”
Besides Eddie, her brother, and her mother, Janie also lost her father in 2023 and her dog Kody.
