‘Depression lies’: Audra McDonald reflects on the ‘whispers’ that led to her suicide attempt

“Grace was waiting for me long before I knew how to claim it for myself,” Audra McDonald said, recalling her mental health journey.

Trigger warning: The article below references suicidal ideation

Today, she’s recognized as a trailblazing, award-winning actress, Audra McDonald, but there was once a time she was just a student struggling with anxiety, depression, and a dream that felt unattainable. 

During an appearance at an event for Hope for Depression Research Foundation in New York City, the Broadway star opened up about her past mental health struggles and the time she almost took her own life.  

“When you’re someone who already struggles with anxiety and depression, that kind of pressure doesn’t just make you tired. It eats at you. It scrambles your thoughts. Depression lies. It tells you that ‘you’re a burden,’ ‘you’re too much,’ that ‘the world is better off without you.’ It whispers those things so quietly and so often that you start to believe them,” she explained, per People magazine. “It makes your own mind feel like an enemy. And I smiled through it. I joked through it, said I was fine. I wasn’t fine.”

At the time, she was 20 years old, studying at the Juilliard School, a season in which she was fulfilling one of her dreams. Still, she felt incredibly disconnected from her other acting dreams as she struggled through the prestigious school’s program.

“My biggest dream was to be on Broadway, to tell stories through song, and to live in that place where music and emotion meet. And suddenly there I was living in New York City, going to Juilliard,” she explained. “I had never been closer to my dream, and yet I had never been further away from it.”

“The voice that they were trying to shape wasn’t mine. And the path they wanted for me wasn’t the one that I had dreamt of. And that disconnect between who I was and who I was trying to be started to break me down,” she continued. “[But I was] too proud to admit that I was falling apart. I fought my whole life to get there. And now that I was there, I was lost, completely lost.” 

That pressure ultimately caused her to slit her wrist one night. During the emotional confession, McDonald recalled calling the Student Affairs director, who she says ultimately saved her life. 

“I said, ‘Please help me.’ And she did. She stayed with me. She called for help,” she recounted. “I was disoriented. I was unsure of who I was anymore. It was the darkest time of my life. But it was also the beginning of my healing. And this is important. I want to say this clearly: that time I needed the medication. I needed it to keep me safe for myself.”

“Maybe there’s a little bit of beautiful irony or grace [in] the fact that the hospital that saved my life was called Gracie Square [Hospital],” she continued, referencing the psychiatric hospital she spent a month at after the incident. “At the time, I didn’t understand what grace really meant. I didn’t know how to give any to myself. But now all these years later, I see it differently. Grace was waiting for me long before I knew how to claim it for myself.”

With a lot of “time, therapy,” and proper medication, McDonald came out on the other side of that dark season. Ultimately, recalling having to walk past that same hospital regularly during her second pregnancy, the actress “learned that healing is not a straight line” and says the “bravest thing” anyone struggling can do is ask for help. 

“I’d look up at the windows and remember that scared 20-year-old girl who thought her story was over. That young woman who thought she had no future — and here I was, literally carrying the next chapter. Every step past that hospital felt like a love letter to survival, a reminder that coming home to yourself isn’t about going back to who you were: It’s about becoming who you’re meant to be. I’ve learned to keep coming back to grace, to keep loving myself, to keep giving myself permission to fail today and try again tomorrow. And there’s power and strength in that.”