By the age of 30, Cheslie Kryst had earned a law degree and an MBA, won the Miss USA crown and was working a high-profile job as an Emmy-nominated correspondent for Extra. On camera and on social media, Kryst was radiant and bubbly. When she died by suicide on Jan. 30, 2022, three months before her 31st birthday, it was an inexplicable shock to those familiar with her public persona.
到30歲時(shí),切斯利·克里斯特已經(jīng)獲得了法律學(xué)位和MBA學(xué)位,贏得了美國(guó)小姐的桂冠,并作為《Extra》的一名獲得艾美獎(jiǎng)提名的記者,獲得了一份備受矚目的工作。在鏡頭和社交媒體上,克里斯特容光煥發(fā),興高采烈。2022年1月30日,也就是她31歲生日的前三個(gè)月,她自殺身亡,對(duì)那些熟悉她公眾形象的人來(lái)說(shuō),這是一個(gè)無(wú)法解釋的打擊。
But those closest to her, like her mother April Simpkins , knew a different Kryst, one who suffered from depression and feared that she could never be good enough.
但她最親近的人,比如她的母親艾普麗爾·辛普金斯,認(rèn)識(shí)了一個(gè)不同的克里斯特,她患有抑郁癥,擔(dān)心自己永遠(yuǎn)不夠好。
Just before she died, Kryst left her mother a note asking her to fulfill a final wish: help get the memoir she'd been writing published. In her book, Kryst revealed that she carried with her an "unshakable feeling that I did not belong" and battled a "constant inner voice repeating 'never enough'. " She wrote of the pressures that came with her success, saying she felt "I had to be perfect because I had to represent for all youth, women, and Black people who also wanted to be in the room but had been denied access."
就在她去世之前,克里斯特給她的母親留下了一張紙條,讓她完成最后的愿望:幫助出版她一直在寫的回憶錄。在她的書中,克里斯特透露,她帶著一種“不可動(dòng)搖的感覺(jué),我不屬于這里”,并與“一個(gè)不斷重復(fù)‘永遠(yuǎn)不夠’的內(nèi)心聲音作斗爭(zhēng)”。她寫到成功帶來(lái)的壓力,她說(shuō)她覺(jué)得“我必須完美,因?yàn)槲冶仨毚硭邢胍M(jìn)入這個(gè)房間卻被拒絕進(jìn)入的年輕人、女性和黑人。”
Simpkins, 56, carried out her daughter's last request, and in hopes of reaching out to others wrestling with mental illness, she added her own voice to the end of the book, sharing the heartbreaking moment she learned that Kryst was gone and the lessons she's learned in grieving her daughter. "I knew it was important to share this," Simpkins tell PEOPLE. "I knew there are other people who felt what I was feeling and could relate."
56歲的辛普金斯執(zhí)行了女兒的最后一個(gè)請(qǐng)求,希望能幫助到其他與精神疾病作斗爭(zhēng)的人,她在書的最后加上了自己的聲音,分享了她得知克里斯特去世的心碎時(shí)刻,以及她在悲傷女兒的過(guò)程中學(xué)到的教訓(xùn)。“我知道分享這一點(diǎn)很重要,”辛普金斯告訴《人物》雜志。“我知道還有其他人和我有同樣的感受,也能感同身受。”
Their book, By the Time You Read This: The Space Between Cheslie's Smile and Mental Illness, is out April 23. Proceeds from the book will go toward the Cheslie C. Kryst Foundation, which supports mental health programs for youth and young adults.
他們的新書《當(dāng)你讀到這本書的時(shí)候:切斯利的微笑和精神疾病之間的空間》將于4月23日出版。這本書的收入將捐給Cheslie C. Kryst基金會(huì),該基金會(huì)支持青少年和年輕人的心理健康項(xiàng)目。