Depression made Brooke Shields feel like she “should not exist”

November 18, 2009 by Baby Chums
Filed under: News

In an acceptance speech on Monday at the Hope for Depression Research Foundation in Manhattan, Brooke Shields revealed that her well-publicized struggles with the disease had her seriously thinking about suicide.

Shields, 44, admitted she almost drove her car into a wall while driving on the highway - with her baby daughter in the backseat after she stopped taking medication for her condition.

She said she felt like she “should not exist” after the birth of Rowan, now 6, in 2003.

“The baby would be better off without me,” she had thought. “Life was never going to get better - so I better just go.”

It was after she quit taking her prescribed meds that Shields hit her rock bottom, saying she, “almost did not resist driving my car straight into a wall on the side of the freeway.”

“My baby was in the back seat and that even p—- me off because I thought she’s even ruining this for me,” Shields said. “I just wanted to drive into the wall, and my friend stayed on the phone with me and made me safely get home.”

Brooke was eventually diagnosed with a chemical imbalance.

“I learned what was going on inside my body and what was going on inside my brain,” she told the crowd. “I learned I wasn’t doing anything wrong to feel that way. That it was actually out of my control.”

Shields and her husband Chris Henchy are also parents to another daughter, 3-year-old Grier.