On the second episode of her podcast Wednesday, Michelle Obama confessed to the world that she is battling depression and blamed President Donald Trump for her current fragile mental state.
The former first lady and wife of Barack Obama said that she is troubled and shaken by some of the actions taken by Trump.
The former attorney sat down with Michele Norris, the former anchor of NPR’s All Things Considered, to talk about mental health during the coronavirus pandemic.
The pair also addressed the many protests taking place after the death of George Floyd. The black American man was killed during an arrest for using a counterfeit $20 bill in Minneapolis.
Several videos showed a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nearly eight minutes as he begged for air and his late mother to save him.
Mrs. Obama stated: “Not just because of the quarantine, but because of the racial strife, and just seeing this administration, watching the hypocrisy of it, day in and day out, is dispiriting.”
The mother of two did not hold back and blamed the Trump administration’s controversial decisions for her depression.
She stated: “I don’t think I’m unusual in that. But I’d be remiss to say that part of this depression is also a result of what we see in terms of the protests, the continued racial unrest, that has plagued this country since its birth. I have to say that waking up to the news, waking up to how this administration has or has not responded, waking up to yet another story of a Black man or a Black person somehow being dehumanized, or hurt or killed, or falsely accused of something, it is exhausting. And it has led to a weight that I haven’t felt in my life, in a while.”
Obama said she has been struggling to sleep, and sometimes she does not feel like herself.
The brilliant orator added: “I’m waking up in the middle of the night, ’cause I’m worried about something, or there’s heaviness. I try to make sure I get a workout in, although there have been periods throughout this quarantine, where I just have felt too low. You know, I’ve gone through those emotional highs and lows that everybody feels, where you just don’t feel yourself, and sometimes there’s been a week or so where I have people surround me. And say, ‘You know what? You’re just not feeling that treadmill right now.'”
Obama went on to explain how she is coping with it all: “So for me, my spirit is lifted when I am feeling healthy when good people surround me, you know, so I reach out. I reach out to my family, and to my friends, even in this time of quarantine. You know, I fought to continue to find a way to stay connected to the people in my life who bring me joy, and my girlfriends, my husband, my kids; it’s the small things … because you have to recognize that you’re in a place, a bad place, in order to get out of it. So you kinda have to sit in it for a minute, to know, oh, oh, I’m feeling off. So now I gotta, I gotta feed myself with something better.”
Many have applauded the Democratic icon for being open about this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVqzYGVwBfQ
