Michelle Obama admits on the newest edition of her podcast that she’s suffering from “low-grade depression” due to the incessant turbulence brought on by the pandemic, racial animus and presidential malfeasance.
The former first lady, 56, revealed to NPR anchor Michelle Norris on Spotify’s “The Michelle Obama Podcast,” that her light-weight despondency emanates “not just because of the quarantine but because of the racial strife, and just seeing this administration watching the hypocrisy of it, day in and day out, is dispiriting.”
The shock to Obama’s sensibilities may be more pronounced since she came off a blockbuster 2019 where her book, Becoming, became one of the best-selling memoirs in the history of American publishing. She and former president and husband Barack, 59, were also producers of the 2019 Netflix documentary short “American Factory” that won an Oscar this past February.
The mother of Malia, 22, and Sasha, 19, told Norris that she is aghast at the White House’s bungling of these monumental issues of the day and says it’s soul-sucking.
“I don’t think I’m unusual in that,” she said. “I have to say, that waking up to the news, waking up to how this administration has or has not responded, waking up to yet another story of a Black man or Black person somehow being dehumanized or hurt or killed or falsely accused of something, it is exhausting. And, it has led to a weight that I haven’t felt in my life in a while.”
Obama said she uses her close friendships and family as a sort of healing balm to mend her emotional wounds in 2020.
