Elle King’s Battle

Elle King says she battled substance abuse and mental illness after her divorce from Andrew Ferguson. King married Ferguson secretly in 2016, three weeks after meeting him at a bar. Not even her family knew she was married, she told People.

“Last year almost broke me…but I’m stronger now because of it,” Elle told People. Ferguson was arrested for domestic violence, and they split up. “I was in a destructive marriage. I was at the lowest point in my life. … I was not well. I couldn’t look people in the eyes. I literally couldn’t leave my house for weeks at a time,” Elle said.

About seeking help from a PTSD specialist, she said, “There’s two ways out. You can take the bad way out or you can get help. I got help because I knew that I have felt good in my life and I knew I could get there again…If I didn’t get help, I probably wouldn’t be … I don’t know. I don’t wanna think like that. I think that reaching out saved my life. I don’t wanna think of any other outcome that could have happened. I feel like the more I talk about it, maybe it could reach somebody … reach somebody that feels alone.”

About her substance abuse, she continued, “I was partying so hard to numb emotions that I couldn’t handle at the time. I realized it was just prolonging the inevitable of dealing with them. And what you have to do, unfortunately, is just feel them, and that sucks. I thought that by doing drugs it would buy me time to feeling better. And when that wasn’t working, I just realized I was in this other cycle, and that I was creating it myself. And I realized I needed to cut all the darkness out of my life.”