As the publication of her memoir Hope, Grace & Faith nears, Leah Messer is opening up about some of her darkest chapters.
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The Teen Mom 2 star previously revealed to People that the miscarriage she had on the show was actually an abortion. She also wrote about experiencing depression and having suicidal thoughts. Now, for the first time she’s divulged details about sexual abuse she experienced as a child.
The abuse, while in the care of a teenage babysitter, apparently took place when Messer was only 5 or 6 years old. Though the abuse went on for about six months, she never spoke to anyone about it. She told People:
“My mom didn’t understand why I screamed every time I went to the babysitter’s house. It was because I was being sexually abused there, and my mom, she didn’t have much support. Reliving those times was really hard, but it was also therapeutic for me. … I could go back and really truly allow myself to heal from the child abuse that I went through.”
Another topic in the book is the 28-year-old’s struggle with opioid addiction. She became dependent on pills prescribed to manage back pain after the birth of her daughter Adalynn in 2013. Her guilt over daughter Ali’s struggles with muscular dystrophy and the end of her marriage to Jeremy Calvert led to her taking a pill and nearly driving herself off a cliff.
Immediately following the incident, Teen Mom 2 producer Larry Musnik reached out about “alarming footage” from the drive, and encouraged her to enter rehab. Messer called the Tuscon, Arizona rehab facility the “best place that I’ve ever went to in my life.” She explained:
“For me it felt like, as silly as it sounds, I didn’t go to college, so it felt like college for me. … It was a schedule, a routine, stability, structure. It was just so empowering for me going there. There are different tracks that you can go to in a facility. For me, it was like laying that foundation for me to be the person that I am today.”
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The mother of three doesn’t see herself having more kids, saying she’s happy with her “girl tribe.” She hopes to give her daughters a better childhood and prevent them from becoming teenage parents, like she was. She told E! News:
“I feel like if I’m on it from the beginning, I can prevent it. So if I am educating them on puberty, educating them on growing up into little ladies, then I will hopefully be able to prevent that. I think if education was expressed to me a lot younger, I would have made completely different decisions. … I’m just going to be open with them. Anytime I hear of conversations that they may be having, I want to be the source for them. I’m breaking that cycle.”
Sounds like she’s doing an amazing job already!
[Image via YouTube/MTV]
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