Savannah Chrisley’s brain has felt ‘so foggy’ since her teenage suicide attempt
Warning: This story discusses suicide.
Not five months after revealing that she once tried to take her life, reality star Savannah Chrisley shared details about her years-long mental health struggles that included a teenage suicide attempt.
The “Chrisley Knows Best” star opened up about the harrowing moment with psychiatrist and brain health expert Dr. Daniel Amen on Tuesday’s episode of her “Unlocked With Savannah Chrisley” podcast.
Suicide prevention and crisis counseling resources
If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, seek help from a professional and call 9-8-8. The United States’ first nationwide three-digit mental health crisis hotline 988 will connect callers with trained mental health counselors. Text “HOME” to 741741 in the U.S. and Canada to reach the Crisis Text Line.
“The reason I ask is from a personal experience, I had tried committing suicide,” the 25-year-old reality star said during their discussion of behavior-altering traumatic brain injuries. Chrisley first shared in November that she suffered from depression as a teenager and tried to end her life.
“[I’ve] never really spoken about it before,” she said in the most recent episode. “But I took a bottle of pills, and obviously [it] didn’t work because I’m sitting here today — thank God — but ever since then I feel like with my brain, my memory, it’s the most frustrating thing in the world because it feels so foggy.”
Savannah Chrisley of ‘Chrisley Knows Best’ addresses her parents’ prison sentences in an episode of her podcast recorded ‘pre-life falling apart.’
Positing that suicide attempts could cause brain injuries and that mild traumatic injuries can ruin people’s lives, the doctor and author said suicidal thoughts are not uncommon and suggested that Chrisley undergo a brain scan to assess her current brain health.
“If you had clarity and now you don’t [then] something happened. And if you can see it, then you can go to rehabilitate it,” Amen said. “So many people go, ‘Oh no, I don’t want to be scanned because I don’t want to know it’s hopeless.’ It’s hardly ever hopeless. There’s always something, but it’s like, let’s get the plan. You know, kill [drinking] the Dr Pepper. Get you to take the right stuff. Stop believing every stupid thing that comes into your head and discipline your mind.”
The reality star and podcaster, who rose to prominence in 2014 when her over-the-top family starred in the USA Network reality show “Chrisley Knows Best,” said in November that she “did a pretty good job at hiding everything.”
TV star Todd Chrisley, known for his blond highlights, has gone gray a month into his years-long prison sentence. ‘It’s really weird,’ says his daughter.
“My struggles of when I went off to college and depression and all these things, it never came out because I was great at hiding. I was great at hiding my emotions.”
In an interview with ET in November, Chrisley said her mental health has become more important than other projects she’s working on.
“I need an outlet to voice how I’m feeling,” she said at the time. “Chances are if I’m feeling this way, so many other people are feeling the exact same way. So, I want to take what I’m going through and make a difference in even one person’s life.”
Chrisley’s latest revelations come as the former USA Network star has been chronicling her family’s life updates on her podcast. In January, she shared that her life was “falling apart” as she was struggling with the absence of her parents, Todd and Julie Chrisley, who were convicted for tax evasion and bank fraud in June 2022 and began their respective prison sentences in Kentucky and Florida earlier this year.
Savannah Chrisley gives a weepy update on how parents Todd and Julie are faring in separate federal prisons. Jesus and Spades are key, she says.
The reality star later shared that her mom and dad are getting by — and going gray — in lockup, but that she’s “grieving the loss of my parents and what I know.”
Also this week, her sister Lindsie Chrisley, 33, said that their affable father is coping well as he serves his 12-year prison sentence.
“I know for sure that he is in such a better place,” referring to Todd Chrisley’s mental state on PodcastOne’s “The Southern Tea.” “His spirits are great. He is really just embracing the process there and making the best of the process there with the people that are also there serving time with him.”
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