Sarah Hyland talks suicidal thoughts amid health battle: 'I was very close'
It has not been an easy road for Sarah Hyland. The 28-year-old Modern Family star may be all about the jokes on screen, but in real life, she’s had a series of very severe health issues that have led to chronic pain and depression.
On Friday’s The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Hyland opens up about just how bad things got for her at one point, noting she had real suicidal thoughts following a series of surgeries.
“At the time I was 26, but after 26/27 years of just always being sick and being in chronic pain every single day and you don’t know when you’re going to have the next good day, it’s really, really hard,” Hyland tells DeGeneres. "I would write letters in my head to loved ones of why I did it and my reasoning behind it, how it was nobody’s fault. I didn’t want to write it down on paper because I didn’t want anybody to find it. That’s how serious I was.”
She describes herself as “very, very, very close” to taking her own life.
"It ended up being myself that got me out of that,” she says. "I had to do it on my own. I told myself I had to do it on my own.”
The turning point came when Hyland finally verbalized her desire to end her life to a friend.
"Just saying it out loud helped immensely because I kept it to myself for months and months at a time,” she says. "I didn’t want anybody to know that I was that close, because if they knew they would try to persuade me.”
Though finally speaking her truth out loud was what helped bring her back from the brink, Hyland notes that she doesn’t want to speak for all people struggling with depression.
"Every person with their anxiety or depression or if you have suicidal thoughts, every individual is different, so I wouldn’t just rely on everything that I say,” she urges. "I’m just sharing my story. But I think talking to someone and saying it out loud really, really makes it sound almost ridiculous and it puts it into perspective."
A major part of her support system these days is Hyland’s boyfriend, Wells Adams. The pair went on their first date just days before she was set to have a kidney transplant. At the time, she had been talking to the Bachelor in Paradise star, and told him he had to come out to Los Angeles or their romance would never happen. He soon called her back with a plan to meet up.
"I found out like a few months into our relationship that it was really just a coincidence and he didn’t fly to L.A. just for me,” she quips. "It was just a convenience.”
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