Tamar Braxton opened up about her struggles with mental health as a reality TV star in an Instagram post Thursday, confirming that her hospitalization earlier this month was the result of a suicide attempt.
“I have without fail, shared with you my brightest days, and I know that sharing with you what has been my darkest will be the light for any man or woman who is feeling the same defeat I felt just only a week ago,” she wrote in the post.
Throughout the post, Braxton cited her “exploitation” on reality television as a stressor on her mental health. After a “cry for help” was ignored, she felt like she was “no longer living.”
“It was only God’s grace and his mercy on my attempt to end my pain and my life that I am here to utilize my voice,” Braxton said. She vowed to help others who suffer from mental illness, “including those of us who’s mental illness was only a result from the toxic, systematic bondage that dwells [in] television.”
Braxton explained that her life as a reality television star had not been all that it seemed.
“Over the past 11 years there were promises made to protect and portray my story, with the authenticity and honesty I gave. I was betrayed, taken advantage of, overworked, and underpaid. I wrote a letter over 2 months ago asking to be freed from what I believed was excessive and unfair. I explained in personal detail the demise I was experiencing. My cry for help went totally ignored,” she wrote. “However the demands persisted. It was my spirit, and my soul that was tainted the most.”
“Who I was, begun to mean little to nothing, because it would only be how I was portrayed on television that would matter,” she continued. “It was witnessing the slow death of the woman I became, that discouraged my will to fight. I felt like I was no longer living, I was existing for the purpose of a corporations gain and ratings, and that killed me.”
Braxton then gave a plea for others to recognize and respect the seriousness of mental illness.
“Mental illness is real. We have to normalize acknowledging it and stop associating it with shame and humiliation,” she wrote.
Braxton’s upcoming WEtv series has since been postponed. At the time of her hospitalization, a WE tv spokesperson told TheWrap “Tamar Braxton has been part of the WE tv family for nearly a decade. We are keeping her and her family in our thoughts and prayers and joining with her fans sending strength and healing at this difficult time.”
Read the full letter below.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CDR145fBoFv/
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-TALK (8255) is a free, 24/7 confidential service that can provide people in suicidal crisis or emotional distress, or those around them, with support, information and local resources.