In Gabourey Sidibe’s new memoir, This Is Just My Face: Try Not to Stare, the Empire actress opens up about her obstacles with bulimia and suicide, The Grio reports.
“Here’s the thing about therapy and why it’s so important. I love my mom, but there’s so much I couldn’t talk to her about during my Hoe Phase,” Sidibe recalls. “I couldn’t tell her that I couldn’t stop crying and that I hated everything about myself. Whenever I did try to open up, my mom seemed unconcerned. When I was sad about something, she told me to ‘get a thicker skin.’ When I was upset, she told me to ‘stop nitpicking.’ My mom has always had faith that things would be okay, but saying ‘tomorrow will be a better day’ wasn’t enough for me.”
Initially, she remembers her mother laughing at her when she told her she was battling depression. However, the 33-year-old confirms it was because her mother could not understand why she was sad. Then she began to have suicidal thoughts. In efforts to cope with the pain, she turned to developing an eating disorder.
“Often, when I was too sad to stop crying, I drank a glass of water and ate a slice of bread, and then I threw it up,” she continued. “After I did, I wasn’t as sad anymore; I finally relaxed. So I never ate anything, until I wanted to throw up — and only when I did could I distract myself from whatever thought was swirling around my head.”
Eventually, she found help and a doctor told her everything that was wrong with her. Still, she admits to struggling with her body, and people’s perception of her at times—or for that matter, society’s standards.
“People are always asking me why or how I’m so confident,” Sidibe recently told The New York Times. “But what they really mean is why are you so confident. They are not asking Rihanna. They are asking me, because they don’t think I should be.”
Additionally, she told the Times she’s done discussing her body, which is why she chose to write about it.