Jennifer Esposito explained that her panic disorder misdiagnosis and crippling celiac disease landed her in the psych ward.
The “Blue Bloods” actress shared on Tuesday’s “Heal Squad” podcast that she started experiencing a myriad of symptoms in her twenties as her career began to take off, but no one diagnosed her as celiac, yet.
Celiac disease is an autoimmune condition in which the body reacts negatively to gluten that’s found in foods containing wheat, barley or rye. During her early career days, the actress said that she suffered from deep depression and “had thoughts of suicide.”
She even shared that while starring on the ABC comedy “Samantha Who?”, which ran from 2007 to 2009, her hair started falling out and her nails fell off.
“A tooth fell out of my mouth, like literally in the middle of a scene,” she told host Maria Menounos. “I was mortified but also had been so ill that I just … I went hysterical. Like, somebody has to help me.”
She shared that one doctor prescribed her medication to aid in the healing process but the effects of it left her feeling like “a trembling mess.”
“I was literally sleeping in my kitchen because it was the only place that didn’t have a window because the light the stimulus from the light would make me tremble and shake,” she said.
Another low moment in her road to recovery was being transferred to the psych ward, while hospitalized for her condition. During her hospital stay, Esposito told her physician that if she was kept there any longer she was “going to jump out the window.”
The doctors took this literally and transferred her to the psych ward.
“Within a half an hour, I was wheeled upstairs to the psych ward, and I will say it was seven of the most excruciating hours of my entire life because I was yet again pleading for my sanity,” she said.
“I remember [the doctor] looked at my dad and he was like, ‘Is she always this hostile?’” she recalled. “And I just thought, if I ever get out of here … I have to do something.”
This moment pushed her to write her book “Jennifer’s Way” in 2014 and start reaching out for support from community groups of fellow celiacs. The memoir detailed her journey towards diagnosis and her challenging relationships with doctors along the way.
The actor-director also shared that after getting off medication and healing her body holistically her panic disorders ceased.
“I do not get panic disorder. I do not have it anymore,” she said. “You cannot be on four Klonopin a day and then be on nothing if I had this panic disorder.”
Watch the full episode of the “Heal Squad” in the video above.
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