Actress Mariel Hemingway has opened up about her family’s curse with mental illness and suicide in a revealing documentary. WARNING: Confronting
Actress and author Mariel Hemingway has opened up about her family’s history of suicide and her own battle with mental health in a powerful new documentary.
The granddaughter of novelist Ernest Hemingway appeared in The Science Of Happiness, available to stream on Flash, where she spoke about her family’s “curse”.
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Dubbed by the media as “the Hemingway curse”, the family has a history of mental illness and suicide.
The Manhattan star lived in fear that she had the same problems as other family members. During her darkest hours, Mariel had thoughts of wanting to end it all.
“I know this is a selfish act, but I really don’t think I want to be here. I just don’t think I’m valuable. I don’t feel me,” the Oscar-nominee said in the feature.
“I was so outside of myself reaching for something bigger, something that’s going to save me, and in that kind of desperate place of unknowing what to do was kind of a gift.
“It was such a dark moment in my life. And even when I think about my kids, it’s so hard because I love my children, and you love your children when you get in dark periods.
“You just honestly think that there’s not a real reason why you’re sufficient enough to be around if you can’t get out of this because I didn’t know how.”
The Superman IV actress said her biggest fear was not being around and leaving her children. She had to embrace her dark thoughts.
“I think it’s about acknowledging that you have dark thoughts and going, “Hey, I’m human, I have dark thoughts”, and the minute you do that lets them go,” she said.
“And then you’re in a place of Oh, when you let go of the darkness. What do you have left? You have your light, your joy, your happiness.”
The Science Of Happiness explores the latest understanding of neuroscience as researchers break the code for happiness.
According to author of The Happiness Project Gretchen Rubin, research suggests about 50 per cent of happiness is genetically determined.
“So some people are born more naturally upbeat, and some people are a little bit more downbeat, and they’re just come into the world that way,” she said.
“Then about 10 to 20% is something called life circumstances. That’s things like age, income, health, marital status, occupation, and then all the rest is very much influenced by the way that we think and act.
“I think that people have a natural range of happiness.
“So maybe one person is seven to 10, and they’re pretty happy and then one person’s more like four to seven so they’re more in the middle.
Originally published as Mariel Hemingway shares family ‘curse’ with mental illness
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