Tamar Braxton has broken her silence after being hospitalized for a suicide attempt two weeks ago, claiming that reality TV pushed her to the limit but she’s now focused on healing.
The R&B singer and reality mainstay thanked all those who prayed and sent well wishes after she was hospitalized on July 16. Thursday. Braxton’s boyfriend, David Adefeso, called for help after finding her unresponsive at a Los Angeles Ritz-Carlton hotel where the couple was staying.
On Thursday, in an Instagram post Tamar touched upon her struggles with mental health and how living her life publicly has affected her well-being.
She captioned the entry “At Peace with Myself” and uploaded it alongside a picture of her son, Logan Vincent Herbert.
“Thank you to each and every individual who has prayed for me, thought of me, sent me their love and has showered me with their support. In this present moment, it is my only responsibility to be real with myself and to be real with the ones who truly love me and care for my healing,” the post began.
“I have without fail, shared with you my brightest days, and I know that sharing with you what has been my darkest will be the light for any man or woman who is feeling the same defeat I felt just only a week ago.”
She declares that each one of us has a desire to “whether small or big, to make it out of where we come from to an ideal future place that includes, freedom to be who we choose, security for our children and families, and fortune to share with the ones we love.”
Braxton says that her pursuit of a career shouldn’t be at the expense of her joy.
“I believed that, that as a Black woman, as an artist, an influence, a personality, I could shape my world, and with whom I believed to be my partners, they could help me share my world,” she continued.
Over the past eleven years, Braxton says that promises were made to “protect and portray my story, with the authenticity and honesty I gave.”
In her view, those guarantees were not kept. TheGrio previously reported that Braxton felt that WE tv, which airs Braxton Family Values, used her sexual abuse as fodder for ratings.
“I was betrayed, taken advantage of, overworked, and underpaid. I wrote a letter over 2 months ago asking to be freed from what I believed was excessive and unfair. I explained in personal detail the demise I was experiencing. My cry for help went totally ignored,” she wrote.
“However the demands persisted. It was my spirit, and my soul that was tainted the most. There are a few things I count on most to be, a good mother, a good daughter, a good partner, a good sister, and a good person.”
Braxton says the woman people saw on the show is not who she is in real life. Sources told TMZ that Braxton was upset that she came off like an “angry Black woman” on the trailer for Get Ya Life!, her upcoming reality TV show with Adefeso. It has since been delayed.
“Who I was, begun to mean little to nothing, because it would only be how I was portrayed on television that would matter,” she wrote.
“It was witnessing the slow death of the woman I became, that discouraged my will to fight. I felt like I was no longer living, I was existing for the purpose of a corporations gain and ratings, and that killed me.”
Braxton says it’s time for an honest conversation about mental illness and to eliminate the stigma around it.
“Mental illness is real. We have to normalize acknowledging it and stop associating it with shame and humiliation. The pain that I have experienced over the past 11 years has slowly ate away at my spirit and my mental,” she wrote.
Braxton declared that it was only through “your prayers” that she survived. She says she will now not only fight for her freedom but for others who work on reality TV shows who do not have the benefit of unions.
Above all, Braxton intends to focus on her own peace of mind and that of her son’s.
“I am learning to grow through my pain instead of looking for an escape. I’m on an irreversible path to healing. I am taking my time,” she resolved.
“It is of the utmost importance that I find my happy and health, through professional treatment, for the sake of my whole heart, Logan, who I forgot in my moment of distress and desperation. And giving this journey my undivided attention. My rise will not be in vain.”
-The Griot