‘Good Morning America’s’ Ginger Zee Opens Up About Depression Battle

Ginger Zee has opened up about her struggle with depression, and how she conquered the crippling disease. She also dropped a bombshell when she admitted that she had thought of committing suicide in the past.

On Tuesday, the ABC News chief meteorologist gushed about her new memoir, “ Natural Disaster: I Cover Them, I Am One,” to her “Good Morning America” colleague Robin Roberts. Zee shared that her new book apparently goes into detail about a very dark part of her life when she suffered depression.

“I fought a disease called depression that a lot of people fight every, single day,” Zee was quoted as saying by ET Online. The 36-year-old television personality revealed that she had suffered depression before she started working at ABC. She even decided to check herself into a mental hospital in 2011 to seek professional help for the disease.

Now Zee wants to spread awareness about depression in hopes of helping other people who may be going through what she experienced. “Just like any disease there is a stigma or, unlike other diseases, there is a stigma surrounding it. And I want to help the hundreds of thousands or millions that are dealing with or dealt with something I did. And I want them to be able to fight without shame,” she told Roberts, who commended the meteorologist for bravely admitting that she had suicidal thoughts in the past.

Zee’s memoir chronicles her rocky move from Western Michigan to Chicago more than a decade ago. It also tackles the regretful secret romance she shared with a Chicago political source who was apparently engaged to another woman. Zee also discusses her struggle with her body in her book.

Zee admitted in a phone interview with the Chicago Tribune that it wasn’t her move to Chicago that led to her struggles. “It’s not the city’s fault because it’s a wonderful city and I love it there. It just was the time in my life and some of the circumstances and the choices that I made and then, obviously, the mental illness that I was battling. And so the combination of all those things just came into that place, and I wasn’t getting the help that I should have because I wasn’t seeking it properly.”

“Depression for me has been a couple of different things — but the first time I felt it, it felt helpless, hopeless and things I had never felt before. I lost myself and my will to live.,” Zee exclusively told Us Weekly this week. The television personality now wants to inspire other people by bringing them hope and showing them that they “are not alone” in their struggle against depression.