Sarah Hyland is not one to shy away from sharing personal stories on social media. The 27-year-old Modern Family actress has often posted about her health struggles that stem from kidney dysplasia, and most recently she shared about the tragic death of her cousin at the hands of a drunk driver.
Hyland seems to live a happy and fun life, and loves to share these images on Instagram. Whether she's at Disney or on vacation with her boyfriend, the young actress seems to have a love of life. But in a new interview with Ellen DeGeneres, Hyland opened up about a side of her life most people don't know.
Hyland revealed that she had extremely scary suicidal thoughts, and at one point she almost followed through with them.
"I have an amazing job, an amazing support system, but...after 26, 27 years of just always being sick and being in chronic pain every single day, you don't know when you're going to have the next good day. It's really, really hard," she told the daytime host.
Hyland also talked about how she mentally prepared to take her own life, and what she would say to her loved ones if it happened.
"I would write letters in my head to loved ones of why I did it and my reasoning behind it, how it was nobody's fault and I didn't want to write it down on paper because I didn't want anyone to find it because that's how serious I was," she continued.
The revelation was pretty stunning for everyone, as Hyland hasn't been quite this open about her life. When DeGeneres asked how close the actress ever came to taking her own life, Hyland's answer gave me chills.
"I was very, very, very, very close, yeah."
Hyland said that these thoughts were their strongest a few years ago, and credits talking about her struggles with ultimately saving her life. Eventually, she decided to see a therapist to talk about her the scary thoughts she was having.
"Just saying it out loud helped immensely because I kept it to myself for months and months at a time and saying it out loud really helped," she explained. "I didn't want anybody to know that I was that close because if they knew, they would try and persuade me."
The Modern Family actress explained that the wanted to talk about these thoughts to let other people know there is light at the end of the tunnel. She's hoping that by sharing her experience she can help someone else who might be going through the same thing.
Hyland had recently come under fire from people on Twitter after she asked fans to donate to her cousin's GoFundMe page after he was tragically killed in an accident. The actress was accused of trying to take advantage of her fans, seeing as she's on an Emmy-nominated show and donated less than some of her co-stars did. Hyland responded to the criticisms, wondering how people could be so cruel.
"You guys finally did it," she wrote. "Your horrible negative ignorant words have broken me. Happy? Staying offline for a while. I have a special announcement and video releasing on Wednesday I believe. So. There's that."
Being in the public eye all the time means people are going to pick apart your life. Couple that with health struggles, and it's easy to see how Hyland could feel so lost in her own skin that her mental health began to struggle.