Naomi Judd’s debilitating mental illness
Despite all the fame and country-music glory, Naomi Judd’s life hasn’t been easy. In 2016, she confessed to suffering from terrible depression.
“What I’ve been through is extreme,” Naomi told Good Morning America. “My final diagnosis was severe depression.” The mental illness is so severe that no type of treatment or medication could treat it, she says. “Treatment resistant because they tried me on every single thing they had in their arsenal,” Naomi explained. “It really felt like, if I live through this I want someone to be able to see that they can survive.”
Naomi says there were times she’d come home off the road and be confined to her house for weeks on end — neglecting the very life she worked so hard to build. “They see me in rhinestones, you know, with glitter in my hair, that really is who I am,” she explained. “But then I would come home and not leave the house for three weeks, and not get out of my pajamas, and not practice normal hygiene. It was really bad.”
And as if that wasn’t bad enough, treating her mental condition has taken a physical toll. The years of treatment and medication caused her face to visibly swell and her hands to shake.