Drew Barrymore and Madison Beer recently found themselves connecting with one another over some of the darkest times in their lives.
The 24-year-old singer appeared on Wednesday's The Drew Barrymore Show and opened up to the talk show host about her struggles with suicidal thoughts and how she found light at the end of the tunnel. The discussion led Barrymore to share her own journey with the topic.
"Everybody struggles, so I related on levels that are difficult to talk about and I want to thank you because you’re discussing stuff right now that I want to make you feel safe about because I've been there," Barrymore said. "So when you were struggling there was attempts at escaping life, tell me about that."
Beer discussed how things caught up with her and how she was "unsuccessful" in taking her own life.
"I got to the point that things caught up with me that I had never acknowledged, I never wanted to face. I feel like I was sort of putting on this façade and living this role I had been assigned for so long and it all caught up to me one day and then one day turned into weeks and months and, honestly, I feel like it was at least year that I was always in this sort of, like, suicidal ideation mindset," Beer said.
"It felt very normal to me to think about that at the end of every day, and then that wasn’t until I ended up actually making an attempt. It was, thankfully, obviously unsuccessful," she continued. "I don’t know, it just all became too much and that’s when I also decided, 'OK, clearly there’s something more for me to live for.' I wasn't successful and I want to do something with that. I want to be able to say I made the choice to live and, what am I gonna do now? What does that mean?"
"And did this happen twice?" Barrymore asked.
"Yeah, I don’t like to, I guess, admit that it happened twice because the second time I sort of brush off, and that should just show how not serious it was to me anymore. It became so normal that sitting on a balcony and debating jumping off was just something that I kind of did," Beer said. "And that’s why I'm like, 'Was that really that big of a deal?' and now obviously with a lot of reflection and writing about it, obviously yes."
Following a suicide attempt at 13, Barrymore’s mother had her hospitalized, an experience she recalled as being committed to a "full psychiatric ward" for a year and a half.
"My mom put me in a place that was, like, a full psychiatric ward," Barrymore shared during a 2021 interview with Howard Stern. "I used to laugh at those Malibu 30-day places… a little spa vacation for 30 days in Malibu was the opposite of the experience I had."
Barrymore opened up to Beer about her own experience with attempting suicide. "Me as well, twice. I don’t know if I really wanted to leave the earth. I was so desperate that I did not know where else to turn."
Beer added, "Right, you wanted like a way out, even if it was maybe temporary, but obviously it can’t be. There’s no way to describe it. I always used to say to my best friend, 'I just want a temporary death, like maybe it’s not forever but right now it’s too much and I want out currently.'"
Barrymore, 48, asked Beer how she pulled herself out of her dark times and found her "way out."
"I think my biggest thing though was I started doing a lot of inner child work, I started healing the little girl in me very seriously and that was something I dove in head first. I was like this has to be what I start with, I have to start at the beginning of where I feel like this pain is coming from," Beer said.
"So I really took that seriously, I went on a couple mental health retreats. I did therapy every single day of the week," she continued. "I just really committed to getting better, whatever better even means. I started to love myself the same way I try to love other people."
Barrymore and Beer then shared an emotional moment.
"I love you," Barrymore said. "Everything you just said, what as an incredible roller coaster of real productiveness in seeking help, in self-awareness, in giving grace to others, realizing you’re not giving it to yourself...and I applaud that because you never have to be fake or anyone but you."
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