Trigger Warning: This article contains mention of self-harm, depression and suicide.
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Legendary and Tony-award winning actress Audra McDonald may have an illustrious career, but that doesn’t mean her life hasn’t been without hardships. In fact, when it comes to her mental health specifically, the “Gypsy” singer recently revealed a truly shocking tough time she dealt with at the beginning of her career.
While we now know her to be a powerhouse onstage, dominating various plays and musicals from “A Raisin in the Sun” to “Porgy and Bess,” she wasn’t always as confident and commanding. Recently, during a conversation at an event for the nonprofit Hope for Depression Research Foundation, McDonald revealed that when she was attending Julliard in her early twenties, she struggled with trying to fit into the mold that the prestigious school wanted to fit into. This, in turn, had a severely negative impact on her mental health.
Acknowledging her hardship with the classical voice program she was taking at the time, McDonald explained per PEOPLE: “The voice that they were trying to shape wasn’t mine. And the path they wanted for me, it wasn’t the one that I had dreamt of. And that disconnect between who I was, and who I was trying to be, started to break me down.”
The “Ohio State Murders” star went on to say that she was “too proud to admit that I was falling apart” and that she would up feeling lost in all her struggles. Eventually, things came to a head when she decided to slit her wrist in an attempt to deal with the pain.
“When you’re someone who already struggles with anxiety and depression, that kind of pressure doesn’t just make you tired. It eats at you. It scrambles your thoughts,” she said. “It makes your own mind feel like an enemy. And I smiled through it. I joked through it, said I was fine. I wasn’t fine. I was 20. And one night I broke. I slit my wrist.”
Thankfully, McDonald eventually called the Student Affairs director who stayed with her to make sure she was OK. What came next for her was a month-long stay at Gracie Square Hospital, a psychiatric hospital on the Upper East Side in New York City, where she stayed “heavily medicated.”
While she described that stay and time period of her life as one the “darkest times” of her life, she ultimately looks at that moment as the very lifeline she needed to keep her head above water.
“This is important. I want to say this clearly: that time I needed the medication. I needed it to keep me safe from myself,” she explained.
McDonald later added that it’s taken “time, therapy, lots of therapy, still therapy,” along with patience and medication to heal. But, she made it clear that healing isn’t just one, simple, straight thing and that she has to be intentional about it everyday.
“Healing is not a straight line, it’s a daily practice. One that still continues every day. Even now, some days are clear, some days still get cloudy,” the “Private Practice” star said. “But I’ve learned to keep coming back to grace, to keep loving myself, to keep giving myself permission to fail today and try again tomorrow. And there’s power and strength in that.”
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