Kerry Washington reveals she contemplated suicide in new memoir

nypost.com:

The “Scandal” alum revealed that she contemplated suicide at the height of her eating disorder.“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.”The “Little Fires Everywhere” actress said she was “trying to destroy” herself amid 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.”She continued: “I was good at performing ‘perfect.’ I was good at control.

I could party all night and drink and smoke and have sex and still show up and have good grades. I knew how to manage; I was so high-functioning and the food took me out.

The body-dysmorphia, the body-hatred, it was beyond my control and really led me to feeling like, ‘I need help for somebody, or something, bigger than me because I’m in trouble and I don’t know how to live with this.’”Now, Washington says her mindset is “different now” — but she still has to “check” herself from time to time.“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.