Kerry Washington is opening up in her new memoir, “Thicker Than Water.” The “Scandal” alum revealed that she contemplated suicide at the height of her eating disorder. “I co…
“I could feel how the abuse was a way to really hurt myself, as if I didn’t want to be here,” Washington, 46, told Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts in a sit-down preview, which aired on Thursday. “It scared me that I could not want to be here because I was in so much pain.”
When asked if she considered suicide, she replied: “Yeah. Yeah … The behavior was tiny little acts of trying to destroy myself.”said she was “trying to destroy” herself at the height of her struggles, which carried on into college. “[My body had] become a toxic cycle of self abuse that utilized the tools of starvation, binge eating, body obsession and compulsive exercise,” she shared. “The first thing that put me on my knees — like the first time I got on my knees and prayed to some power greater than myself to say like, ‘I can’t do this, I need some help’ — was with my eating disorder.”Getty Images for Baby2BabyGetty Images for Critics Choice AssociationThe “Scandal” alum hits the grey carpet for the SAG Awards.
“I wouldn’t say that I never act out with food, it’s just very different now,” she said. “It’s not to the extreme. There’s no suicidal ideation, that is not where I am anymore. But I know, ‘Oh, I’m really in this chocolate, this is good information for me.’ The bottom has gotten a lot higher where just a little discomfort with it is enough for me to know this is a way to check myself. But it definitely looks a lot healthier. It’s a lot easier. It’s a lot saner than it used to be.