Kerry Washington Reveals She Had Panic Attacks at Age 7 in New Memoir
Kerry Washington is giving readers a peek into her life story in her memoir, Thicker Than Water, due out this fall.
In an excerpt from her memoir that was published on Oprah Daily, Washington shares that she “developed panic attacks at night,” as a young child brought on by hearing her parents arguing.
“They manifested first as a rhythm of anxiety that encircled my brain, then evolved into a rapid pulsing, a whirling frenzy of metallic thumps, like those nauseating old spinning rides at a county fair,” she wrote of the panic attacks.
She added, “I was dizzied with terror, no ground beneath me; it was crazy-making, endless. And sad,” she recalled. “There was something so sad about the rhythm. And I couldn’t make it stop. I couldn’t sleep. It was as though the alarms within me had been triggered and there was no turning them off.”
The 46-year-old star writes that while she didn't have panic attacks every night, she often “trembled at the possibility of it."
“Lying in bed, I would race to fall asleep before the sounds would leak from my bones. I would force myself to try to have ‘good’ thoughts,” she wrote.
“I hated that the rhythm came from within me,” Washington continued. “I hated that my own brain was not to be trusted. If I lost the race to sleep and got caught by the rhythm, I had no tools to escape it, no way of controlling my own brain as it conspired against me.”
Washington shares that she tried desperately to be a "good girl" and help her parents get along better, which would provide her with emotional security.
The notoriously private star will delve deeper into how she "faced a series of challenges and setbacks, effectively hid childhood traumas, met extraordinary mentors, managed to grow her career, and crossed the threshold into stardom and political advocacy, ultimately discovering her truest self and, with it, a deeper sense of belonging," according to PEOPLE.
"Writing a memoir is, by far, the most deeply personal project I have ever taken on," Washington told PEOPLE earlier this year. "I hope that readers will receive it with open hearts and I pray that it offers new insights and perspectives, and invites people into deeper compassion — for themselves and others."
Washington will head out on a book tour nationwide to support the book this fall. Dates are available on her website.
