Naomi Judd’s daughter Wynonna has penned an emotional statement on Instagram, explaining the heartbreaking weeks she’s had to endure since the passing of her mother last month. As fans will recall, the former country singer committed suicide on April 30 after losing her long-time battle “to the disease of mental illness,” her devastated family announced at the time. She was 76 years old. A month later, Naomi says that grieving her mother’s death has been so tough that she’s started feeling “helpless” at times.
“Checking in. There is so much happening in the world right now,” the 57-year-old wrote. “So before I sat down to write this, I thought, ‘No…I just don’t know what to say.’ Then, I heard the words from my life coach asking me, ‘What do you know?’ And I began to cry. WHAT DO I KNOW?? I DO know, that the pain of losing Mom on 4/30 to suicide is so great, that I often feel like I’m not ever going to be able to fully accept and surrender to the truth that she left the way she did. This cannot be how The Judds story ends.”
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Naomi stressed that in other to be a healthier grandparent to her firstborn grandchild Kaliyah, to break the cycle of addiction and family dysfunction, she must continue to show up for herself and continue the personal healing work, as tough as it might be after such a tragic loss. “I DO know, that I feel so helpless—right now especially. I DO know, that as corny as it sounds, ‘Love Can Build A Bridge.’ I find myself humming the song that Mom wrote for the fans, to myself here on the farm at night.”
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Before her death, Naomi had been very vocal about her struggles with mental illness. In 2016, for example, she revealed that her battle with the health condition had been a lifelong one, but in 2012 when she was on her Last Encore Tour, things had taken a drastic turn for the worst. In her memoir River of Time: My Descent Into Depression and How I Emerged With Hope, the country icon said she was plagued by memories of being sexually abused as a child, a traumatic experience she never came to terms with in her younger years.
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“I never dealt with all the stuff that happened to me, so it came out sideways, as depression and anxiety,” she said. “Depression is partly genetic, and I have it on both sides of my family.” Her depression had gotten so bad, Naomi suffered from lack of movement — even her muscle had atrophied during this time. She underwent treatment for depression, recalling, “It really felt like, if I live through this, I want someone to be able to see that they can survive.”