*Taraji P. Henson is opening up about the suicidal thoughts she had amid the COVID pandemic.
Speaking on her Facebook Watch series, “Peace of Mind with Taraji,” the “Empire” star admitted that she considered taking her own life this year.
“For a couple of days, I couldn’t get out of the bed, I didn’t care. That’s not me,” Henson said in a conversation with co-host Tracie Jade and licensed psychologist Dr. LaShonda Green, per PEOPLE.
“Then, I started having thoughts about ending it,” she continued. The actress said her son, Marcell Johnson, would “get over” her death because “he’s grown.”
Henson then realized she needed to talk to someone about her disturbing thoughts, which intensified after she purchased a new gun.
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“I felt myself withdrawing. People were calling me, I wasn’t responding. I just didn’t care. Finally, I’m talking to one of my girlfriends and I knew, I was smart enough to say, ‘I have to say it,'” Henson said, adding that she felt “ashamed.”
“I was like, I don’t want them to think I’m crazy,” she continued. “I don’t want them to, you know, obsess over me or think they gotta come and sit on me.”
“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,'” Henson said, before adding, “‘Oh my god, I feel so much better. I’m not gonna do it now.'”
After opening up about her suicidal thoughts, Henson said she was able to overcome the desire to end her life.
“For me, I’m no professional, but I felt like, if I don’t say it, it becomes a plan,” she explained. “And what scared me, is that I did it two nights in a row. And the thoughts kept coming. Now I started think about how. At first, it was like, I don’t want to be here. And then I started thinking about going and getting the gun. And that’s why when I woke up the next morning, and 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 because that’s how strong my brain is.”
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