Former first lady Michelle Obama opened up about mental health on the latest episode of her podcast, and she has been dealing with “some form of low-grade depression” this year.
Obama explained on her show, The Michelle Obama Podcast, that she has been facing emotional highs and lows as a result of quarantine, ongoing racial unrest in the country, and “the hypocrisy” of the Trump administration.
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The episode featured a discussion with former NPR “All Things Considered” anchor Michele Norris, and discussed topics such as mental health as well as how audiences can “gain new understandings” of themselves during a pandemic and national dialogue about race.
“There have been periods throughout this quarantine where I just have felt too low,” Obama said. “I’ve gone through those emotional highs and lows that I think everybody feels where you just don’t feel yourself. Sometimes, there’s been a week or so where I had to surrender to that and not be so hard on myself… It is unusual and it is a direct result of just being out of body, out of mind. Spiritually, these are not fulfilling times.”
Obama went on to attribute some of the unfulfilling moments she’s been experiencing to watching and hearing about the Trump administration and its day-to-day operations.
“Seeing this administration, watching the hypocrisy of it, day in and day out, is dispiriting. So I’ve had to kind of give myself that, those days, those moments,” she said. “Part of this depression is also a result of, what we’re seeing in terms of the protests, the continued racial unrest, that has plagued this country, since its birth.”
The former first lady said she deals with the depression by maintaining a routine and relying on friends and family for emotional support, and offered a bit of advice for how others can take care of themselves during this time.
“I reach out to my family and to my friends, even in this time of quarantine,” Obama continued. “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.”
The first episode of the podcast debuted on July 16, and was a discussion with her husband, former President Barack Obama, about their current responsibilities to the public.
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Oh poor little rich girl suffering from depression because she’s quarantined in her mansion. Sorry not sorry have a hard time feeling bad for her. Why not slum with us poor folk