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More celebrities have been coming forward and disclosing that they have had mental health struggles at certain points in their life, making it less of a taboo topic. The latest public figure to openly discuss a dark time in their life is Kandi Burruss. The Atlanta-bred singer/songwriter recently revealed that during her middle school years she battled a bout with depression. On an episode of her YouTube series, Body Work, she sat down with her friend Esther Fairrow and made the shocking revelation.
“I understand depression and different things like that ’cause I dealt with stuff like that at a younger age. I had a bout in middle school,” the Real Housewives of Atlanta star said. “I actually wanted to commit suicide. But praise the Lord, I wasn’t able to find my mom’s gun when I wanted to do it. So, that did not happen, praise God. And I think as I got into high school is when I started finding myself, but then I also lost my brother in high school.”
Burruss also offered some words of encouragement to people who are having suicidal thoughts.
“In anything that you’re doing, there is going to have to be a sense of…even when you don’t want to, when it doesn’t feel good, when you’re subconscious, when you’re just feeling emotionally out of it…a sense of, ‘in order to get to your end goals, you’re going to have to push through’,” she said.
According to research from the National Institute of Mental Health, “suicide became the second leading cause of death in Black children aged 10-14, and the third leading cause of death in Black adolescents aged 15-19″ as of 2018.
Watch the full episode of Body Work below.
