AKMU’s Lee Su-hyun is drawing a wave of support after candidly revealing, for the first time, the concrete reasons behind her long hiatus and slump — a brutal bout of burnout that spiraled into depression and panic disorder.
Recently, on her YouTube channel, Lee said, "It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when it started, but I think the exhaustion that built up since my 'K-Pop Star' days finally exploded."
She named the collapse of her solo album plans — which she had prepared for alone after her brother Lee Chan-hyuk enlisted in the Marine Corps — as the biggest turning point. Although everything was finished internally, the project never saw the light of day, and she said the process left her deeply discouraged.
Lee recalled, "I felt sorry to everyone I worked with, and at the same time, I wondered if I just wasn’t good enough," adding, "That’s when my heart started to crumble." She continued, "I said I wanted to rest, but people told me I was being ungrateful. It was shocking to realize that even though I started this because I loved it, the system wouldn’t let me stop just because I wanted to."
Her schedules went on — and her condition worsened. "While I kept working, it felt like I was slowly wearing away," she said. "When my energy hit rock bottom, I broke down mentally." She added that only after her struggles became visible did people around her finally tell her to take a break.
But even after pausing activities, recovery didn’t come easily. "I suddenly had freedom, but I ended up shutting myself in at home," Lee confessed. "I chased pleasure only through binge eating, and my weight shot up by about 20–30 kg (44–66 lbs)." She added, "I hated the person I saw in the mirror, and my self-esteem was at zero."
In the end, her family reached out. "My brother came home and said we should go to the hospital. At that point, I was so on edge I was pushing even my family away," she said, adding, "My mom cried a lot, too."
After visiting a hospital on Lee Chan-hyuk’s advice, she received multiple diagnoses, including insomnia, depression, lethargy, social anxiety, and panic disorder. "I was relieved for the first time to learn that what I thought was just me being strange was actually an illness," she said. "When the doctor told me, 'We can treat this,' it felt like salvation."
Lee then chose to change her life to recover, revealing that one step in that journey was walking Spain’s Camino de Santiago. "From then on, I truly wanted to get better," she confessed, leaving many fans deeply moved.
After the video went live, comments flooded in with messages like, "You went through so much," "Thank you for holding on," and "It’s okay to walk slowly now."
Meanwhile, AKMU, Lee Su-hyun’s group, recently released their fourth full-length album, 'Blooming'.