The coronavirus pandemic affected everyone differently and Taraji P. Henson reveals that she contemplated suicide.
The actress is open about her struggles with depression and anxiety, and said that she had a “dark moment” in recent months.
“For a couple of days, I couldn’t get out of the bed, I didn’t care. That’s not me. Then, I started having thoughts about ending it,” she said during her Facebook Watch series, Peace of Mind with Taraji.
The 50-year-old bravely shared that the negative thoughts came to her mind “two nights in a row” and that she owns a gun that she keeps locked in a safe.
“If I could go in there right now, and just end it all ’cause I want it to be over, ” Henson recalled of her thoughts.
“Thought about my son [Marcell Johnson], I said, ‘He’s grown, he’ll get over it,’” she continued.
Like many regular folks, Taraji P. Henson saw herself struggling with depression as she complied with the mandated COVID-19 lockdown. “People were calling me, I wasn’t responding. I didn’t care,” Henson said.
The Empire star told a friend about her mental state and admitted that she felt “ashamed.” “I was like, ‘I don’t want them to think I’m crazy.’ I don’t want them to, you know, obsess over me or think they gotta come and sit on me,” Henson said. “So one day I just blurted it out to my girlfriend. She called me in the morning and I was like, ‘You know I thought about killing myself last night.’”
She added that it was important for her to express her thoughts before it becomes a plan. “At first it was like, ‘I don’t want to be here,’ then I started thinking about going to get the gun. That’s why when I woke up the next morning, I blurted it out because I felt like after a while it was going to take over me and it was going to become a plan.”
