Tana Mongeau Opens Up About Recent Struggle with Xanax Addiction and Suicidal Thoughts

Tana Mongeau is getting candid about her struggle with Xanax and suicidal thoughts.

In a YouTube video titled, “Letting You in on the Truth About MTV, Depression + a Life Update,” Mongeau, 21, revealed that 2019 was incredibly challenging for her despite it appearing as though she had “the perfect life.”

Mongeau said, “2019 might have been one of the most successful textbook years of my life, but when it comes to my mental state it was absolutely hands down in my 21 years of life the worst year of that.”

“From January to December of 2019, I crumbled to be real and I think by the end of 2019 I had beaten myself up in every possible way to the point where I wasn’t even a person. I was fully at rock bottom. I wanted to die. I wanted to kill myself. I did not want to live,” Mongeau continued.

Mongeau spent the majority of last year in the spotlight following her split from Bella Thorne, the premiere of her MTV series No Filter and her marriage to Jake Paul. The couple announced their decision to call it quits in January.

“I was doing so many things that would have killed me if I didn’t stop. It got to a point where I didn’t care … about living at all,” Mongeau shared in her YouTube video.

Mongeau credits her downfall to what she describes as an abusive upbringing.

“I think it was a culmination of my entire 21 years of life,” she says. “It’s not something I talk about. My childhood was the worst thing on earth. I’m very lucky to have gotten out of that, but I spent 15 years of my life being so incredibly emotionally abused,” Mongeau says in the video.

“I was raising myself all of those years. I built up so much hatred for my parents, like so much anger for the life they had given me,” Mongeau said.

The YouTuber went on to explain that she did nothing but bottle up that pain especially as her career in Hollywood began to take off.

“I spent the next six years continuing to bottle in any emotional pain that I could while I was also snowballing into a bigger and bigger point of fame. Months before I started my YouTube channel, my best friend died, and I was spending the days filming and the nights staring at the ceiling, bottling in the depression,” Mongeau said in the video.

Mongeau shared that she went on to experience a number of abusive relationships and opted to numb her pain rather than address it.

“Ever since I was 15 years old, I struggled with numbing things out with anything,” Mongeau said, adding that it wasn’t until she turned 20 that she realize what she was doing.

She shared that she didn’t want to get help “because my life was perfect.”

All throughout that time, Mongeau says she was being “scrutinized” by the public.

Mongeau then admitted she was addicted to Xanax.

“I was at a the point of taking Xanax where it’s not that I was trying to overdose — that drug has killed people I love — I was definitely taking enough to where I wasn’t trying to kill myself but I definitely didn’t care if I died.”

PinPep/Shutterstock Tana Mongeau

Things got so bad that she was forced to confess her addiction to her manager Jordan Worona, whom she credits with saving her life, as she was just about to begin filming her MTV series.

“[He] was like ‘So you tried to kill yourself?’ And I was like, ‘No, I just took this amount of pills,’ and he was like, ‘If you’re taking that much and you know it can kill you, you’re okay with that?'” Mongeau shared.

Things for Mongeau especially came to a breaking point while filming her reality series. She explained that she was taken aback by the way MTV was “editing” her in a way that wasn’t exactly how she “acted on a daily basis.”

Mongeau shared that she felt she was portrayed as a “mean” person and doesn’t want to be known for that. She also explained her reason for filming the video was in response to fans who claimed she didn’t care about health or being healthy.

“I always have gone out of my way to be known as a person who is always so nice to their fans and treats everyone like equal.”

Mongeau concluded her video by explaining that she hopes to now use her platform to promote change and positivity especially amid the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. In the description of her video, she linked to two charities that are providing funds to families in need amid the global health crisis.

“I’ve been working every day to see what else I can do with my platform,” Mongeau said. “It’s the first I’ve really had a fire lit under me to do everything I can to change the world. I’m so grateful that I hit rock bottom because learning how such a fucked up mindset like that can really take away your life taught me how fragile life is and how important health is.”

A rep for MTV did not immediately reply to PEOPLE’s request for comment.

If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 or go to suicidepreventionlifeline.org.

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