Entertainment

Taraji P Henson Reveals She’s Suffering From Depression And Anxiety

Published

5 years ago

April 4, 2019

Peter Dredd

Taraji Exclusive Interview With Variety

Hollywood actress Taraji P Henson opened up about her struggle with depression during a recent interview with Variety.

The ‘What Men Want’ actress sat down with the outlet to speak about her organization, the Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation, dedicated to ending the stigma surrounding mental illness in the Black community. The organization is named after her late father.

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Taraji P Henson lost both her father and former boyfriend within just two years and said that finding support for her son within the Black community was near impossible.

“When we started doing research and I started looking for a therapist that at least looked like him, so he could trust them, it was like looking for a unicorn,” she told Variety.

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Thank you @Variety 🙏🏾💋💋💋 #Repost @Variety For Variety’s 2019 #PowerOfWomen: New York Issue, Variety profiled Taraji P. Henson who told us about how she’s working to eradicate mental health stigmas in black communities: “We’re walking around broken, wounded and hurt, and we don’t think it’s ok to talk about it. We don’t talk about it at home. It’s shunned. It’s something that makes you look weak. We’re told to pray it away.” Taraji opens up about her own depression and anxiety, and how she handles it at the link in bio. (📸 @cliffwatts)

A post shared by taraji p henson (@tarajiphenson) on Apr 2, 2019 at 1:29pm PDT

She also opened up about her own personal struggles with depression:

“I suffer from depression,” she went on. “My anxiety is kicking up even more every day, and I’ve never really dealt with anxiety like that. It’s something new.

“That’s the only way I can get through it. You can talk to your friends, but you need a professional who can give you exercises. So that when you’re on the ledge, you have things to say to yourself that will get you off that ledge and past your weakest moments.”

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“We have to reverse these kids going straight from school to prison,” she concluded.