Noah Cyrus opened up about her grief, addiction and self-forgiveness journey in a recent interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music.
During the six-part sit-down interview, Cyrus spoke about the motifs and inspirations for her debut album, The Hardest Part, which drew much of its inspiration from her mental health struggles.
“When I turned 20, I was overcome by the thought that I might not turn 21,” she said, the quote a line from the first song on the album.
Now the 22-year-old is speaking openly about the role addiction has played in her life.
“The end of December of 2020 is when I decided to try and kick my addiction to downers, prescription pills, painkillers. Xanax — that was kind of my drug of choice — and I was completely wrapped inside of that drug,” she said.
Finally, she reached a breaking point that pushed her to seek help.
“When I had just lost all hope and all faith and all, like, what felt like strength to keep going is when I just broke down and asked for help … For so long I had been denying, denying, denying and pushing away, where I finally just said, ‘I cannot lie to you anymore,'” she said.
This revelation allowed those around her to better understand the severity of her struggles, and demystified some of her past behaviors.
“I called my therapist, I called my psychiatrist, and I think there was a lot of confusion that a lot of things clicked for them, where a lot of stories hadn’t made sense in the past,” she said. “I got the help that I needed and also that I deserve, and that every person with addiction or mental health deserves.”
Cyrus has been candid with her supporters through the ebbs and flows of her mental health journey.
“I think that’s one thing that’s always stayed the same with me, is how truthful I’ve been, and honest I’ve been, about what’s going on inside and my mental health,” she said. “I mean, with my fans, I’m really straight-up with my mental health and growing up, how that’s been hard for me in the public eye.”
She also opened up about her mental state during her road to recovery and the critical role her furry friends played in keeping her alive.
“My dogs … they save me. The process of waking up, feeding them, taking them out, going on walks, that actually kept me alive at one point in my life because I feel like I knew that my dogs relied on me. When I felt like I had no purpose, the purpose that I did have were those dogs,” she said.
Now a few months shy of the two-year anniversary of her decision to beat her addiction, Cyrus is able to reflect on the dangerous headspace that led her down the path of drug abuse in the first place.
“There’s a lot of personal things … that I had to come to terms with. I’ve acknowledged it and I’m definitely healing it. But I think also, at the time, I did not want to be alive anymore. I didn’t,” she shared. “And I was just waiting for one day that maybe I just wouldn’t wake up. I don’t know where it was heading. There were a lot of scary moments. I just know that I was trying to avoid being alive or maybe feeling the feeling of being alive. Because sometimes being alive is painful.”
She acknowledged that life will still get hard at times, but knows she is in a much better place now.
“Either it’s the first time or the first time in, like, a very freaking long time,” she said, “that I have felt this feeling in myself of just peaceful happiness.”
Wellness, parenting, body image and more: Get to know the who behind the hoo with Yahoo Life’s newsletter. Sign up here.
