Lady Gaga has revealed that she suffers from PTSD.

The philanthropic singer spoke about it during a Today segment that aired Monday. The 30-year-old Gaga surprised teens at the Ali Forney Center, a New York City shelter for LGBT homeless youth.

“I told the kids today, ‘I suffer from PTSD.’ I’ve never told anyone that before,” Gaga said. “So here we are. But the kindness that’s shown to me by doctors as well as my family and my friends, it’s really saved my life.”

Lady Gaga said in a December 2014 interview with Howard Stern that she had been raped early in her career.

“You know, I went through some horrific things,” she told Stern. “I’m able to laugh now because I’ve gone through a lot of mental and physical therapy and emotional therapy to heal over the years. My music’s been wonderful for me. But, you know, I was a shell of my former self at one point. I was not myself. To be fair, I was about 19 … I went to Catholic school, and then all this crazy stuff happened, and I was going, ‘Oh, is this just the way adults are?’”

It took a while for Gaga to process just what she’d experienced.

“It happens every day, and it’s really scary and it’s sad,” she added. “And you know, it didn’t affect me as much right after as it did about four or five years later. It hit me so hard. I was so traumatized by it that I was like, just keep going. I just had to get out of there.”

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Last year, Lady Gaga was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Song for Til It Happens to You, a piece she wrote with Diane Warren for The Hunting Ground, a documentary about sexual assault on college campuses.

Her appearance on Today had to do with another step she’s taken to heal: co-founding the Born This Way Foundation with her mother, Cynthia Germanotta, in 2012 to help young people create a kinder and braver world. She gave out hugs and gifts, and led the kids through a meditation as part of Today and NBC Universal’s #ShareKindness campaign to celebrate acts of kindness.

“Meditation helps me to calm down,” Lady Gaga told the teens. “I don’t have the same kind of issues that you have, but I have a mental illness, and I struggle with that every day so I need my mantra to help keep me relaxed.”

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The “Edge of Glory” singer noted that her good works, such as her visit to the shelter, aren’t entirely selfless — she takes something from them too.

“I’ve been searching for ways to help myself. And I found that kindness is the best way,” she said.