Atlanta recording artist and entrepreneur Jeezy is talking about something that has tended to be taboo in the Black community up until recently. On an appearance on the Tamron Hall Show he revealed that he suffered from depression for “eight years of my life.”
While promoting and discussing his recent book, Adversity for Sale, the former Boyz n da Hood member talked to Hall about his anxiety. Growing up, he said he did not know what was going on with him, mentally, but struggled to get through it.
“I learned that vulnerability is power. It’s power. I thought something was wrong with me, thinking I come from poverty, this is just how it is,” he shared. “I didn’t understand trauma and all these different things so when I started to get the words for it, I started to understand and grab tools, I started to become better. I started on my journey and that’s why I’m expressing it and putting it in the book because I didn’t know I was depressed for like eight years of my life straight.”
He continued to describe what his depression was like.
“You wake up and you just want to go back to sleep forever, you know? And I was leaning into my vices,” he said. “And that’s what street life does to you. You know what I’m saying? When you lose 200, 300, 400 people like gone forever, you just, you get numb. And I wasn’t able to get in touch with my emotions and I was wondering why.”
He acknowledged that having his children helped him in the growth he had to make to become better inside.
“Thank God for my kids but there was a time I was just cold. That’s when I was Young Jeezy,” he admitted.
Last month, the “Go Getta” rapper shocked the world and apparently, his wife, TV host Jeannie Mai, when he filed
for divorce in a Fulton County Superior Court in Atlanta after the two had been married for only two years.In the filing, he stated, “The marriage is irretrievably broken. There is no hope for reconciliation.”
Although the divorce is pending, the two are still living under the same roof.
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