Sarah Hyland is opening up about her battle with depression among a slew of chronic health issues, and how she overcame her own suicidal thoughts.
“I was very, very, very close,” Hyland told DeGeneres. “I would write letters in my head to loved ones — of why I did it, my reasoning behind it, how it’s nobody’s fault. And I didn’t want to write it down on paper because I didn’t want anyone to find it. … I didn’t want anyone to know I was that close because if I knew, they would try to persuade me.”
“At the time, I was 26, and after 26, 27 years of always being sick and being in chronic pain every single day and you don’t know when you’re going to have the next good day, it’s really, really hard,” she added.
The actress thenstarted regularly undergoing dialysis, a temporary treatment where a machine filters blood in and out — which is typically the kidney’s job — that required putting a tube on her chest andled to her severely dropping weight. Doctors removed the transplanted kidney in May 2017 and her younger brother Ian, 23, offered his kidney, which was transplanted in September 2017.
It was thankfully a match, though Hyland’shealth problems didn’t end there. The actress also has endometriosis and an abdominal hernia. That led to more surgeries — she’s told Degeneres she’s had six in the last 17 months, and 16 total over the course of her life — including a laparoscopic surgery for the endometriosis and a hernia repair surgery.
“It ended up being myself that got me out of that,” Hyland told DeGeneres, 60. “I had to do it on my own, I told myself I had to do it on my own.”
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Confiding in someone else also helped. “I’d been saying, ‘I think I need to go see a therapist again,’ And they were like, ‘Why do you need to go see a therapist, you can just talk to me?’ And when I said it out loud they were like, ‘Oh you need to go see a therapist!’ And that’s when I was like, ‘Okay, I don’t think you’re going to help me. I think I need to really do this on my own and really do even more digging and soul searching,’ ” she recalled.
“Just saying it out loud helped immensely because I kept it to myself for months and months at a time. And saying it out loud really helped me,” Hyland said. “Every person with their anxiety, or depression, or suicidal thoughts, every individual is different. So I wouldn’t rely on everything I say, I’m just sharing my story. But I think talking to someone and saying it out loud really, really makes it sound almost ridiculous and puts everything in perspective.”
If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact theNational Suicide Prevention Lifelineat 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
source: people.com
