Michelle Williams had an in-depth interview with Essence about her mental health battle and revealed that she’s doing much better these days.
In March of last year, the Destiny’s Child member got engaged to Chad Johnson, a pastor from Dolores, Colo., and they eventually starred in the OWN reality series “Chad Loves Michelle.”
But those happy times also came with a lot of challenges, because Williams announced that she’d checked into a mental health facility in July 2018 and was getting help by a team of health care professionals.
Then in December, the Illinois native announced that she’d broken her engagement to Johnson, and just one week after that she took herself out of the Broadway show “Once On This Island,” based on doctor’s orders. Williams had a mental breakdown around that time as well.
But today, the 38-year-old said she’s arrived at a peaceful place and it started with facing her challenges head on.
“Allow yourself to feel the pain of what you’re feeling. But then tell yourself you’ve got to get up,” Williams explained. “Because some people won’t tell you to get up or know what to say. I pray you find that inner strength to say, ‘Okay, I’ve been down. I’ve been in this bed too long. I’ve got to get up.’ That’s what I did.”
“In December it was a whole ’nother story,” she added. “I was weak, very depressed and thinking it was the end of my life.”
That time period is much different from this past spring, however, because Williams said she felt incredibly well. But at the same time, the “Say Yes” singer realized that she took on way too much after leaving the mental facility last year.
“March and April have been my strongest months this year,” she stated. “When people say it gets better, it does. It just takes time. The days do get brighter. It’s not that I was never happy in my life.”
“Last year, from the point of my hospitalization, I didn’t heal from that, and then I went straight into filming,” added the singer. “After filming the show, I went to rehearsals for Broadway. I had no business doing any of that.”
Back in May, Williams and Johnson were spotted together at the Kentucky Derby, and after many thought they were rekindling their romance they advised her not to do it.
