Paris Jackson is looking back at her past suicide attempts and her traumatic experience at a Utah treatment facility.
“Each one was different. I know some people that have been to the ones that were not as bad or worse,” Jackson, 28, recalled during the Monday, August 17, episode of Jay Shetty’s “On Purpose” podcast while discussing the treatment center her family sent her to following a suicide attempt at age 15.
“I definitely left with more PTSD than I went in there with and had nightmares for two or three years about going back after I finally left because I was there for a couple of months,” she continued. “I was one of the lucky ones where we didn’t experience physical or sexual abuse, but there was definitely a lot of psychological, emotional, spiritual abuse that happened there”
Jackson recalled struggling to trust her roommate and therapist.
“I can’t trust anybody here because anything you say could put you on the lowest level and you can’t really call your family and tell them because they’re listening,” she said. “They will call your family and be like, ‘Don’t listen to her. She’s lying to you.’ And then you get a consequence … and you’re on meds and you’re zombie-d out and it’s rough. You have to learn how to kind of play the game if you want to get out.”
A few years after leaving the treatment center, Jackson — who has struggled with drug and alcohol addiction — attempted suicide again after quitting heroin “cold turkey” while still drinking, snorting cocaine and smoking weed.
“After about a month of not sleeping, because that’s what happens, I was maybe getting an hour or two at night, maybe three if I’m lucky, and I had a suicide attempt that didn’t work,” she explained. “And so when I just woke up hours later, I was like, ‘F***.’ That was one of the first attempts where I’m like, ‘F***, it didn’t work.’ Because a lot of people are, like, relieved when it doesn’t work or they feel regret the second they attempt it. I was so upset when it didn’t work.”
Jackson said she hit a “proper bottom with alcohol” a few weeks later and was “scared” into getting sober.
“For a long time, [I] went back and forth between this place of, ‘I can’t be here anymore,’ and ‘Well, it’s not my time,’” she recalled. “The good or the bad, the light and the heavy, these are all things that are part of the experience, and I’m here to experience the entire spectrum. I want all the feelings, ‘cause that’s what I’m taking with me when I leave.”
Jackson said she has turned to a “spiritual tool kit” that includes therapy, meditation and prayer to manage her mental health.
“I think happiness is temporary. I think pain is temporary,” she concluded. “And so knowing that I may get sad again, and I may go through a dark time again, hopefully will be bringing the information with me this time of, ‘There is a way out. You’ve done it before. You will do it again.’”
Jackson’s new album, Happiest Day of My Life, drops on Friday, August 21.
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org.
