‘Blue Bloods’ Star Jennifer Esposito Details Health Struggles That Led to Depression and Suicide Ideation

For years, Jennifer Esposito's body seemed to be failing her in ways no doctor could explain. It would take a terrifying near-miss on the road, and a diagnosis that changed everything, before she finally got answers.

Jennifer Esposito is opening up about a yearslong health battle riddled with painful symptoms that debilitated her mental health, a psychiatric hospital stay, and several misdiagnoses before doctors finally found that she had celiac disease.

Esposito discussed the ordeal during a conversation with Maria Menounos on an episode of her podcast "Heal Squad," published Tuesday, August 11. The "Blue Bloods" alum said she had always been a sickly child, but her health issues did not truly escalate until adulthood.

She recalled working as a young actress in New York City when she began experiencing unexplained physical and mental health issues that grew so severe, she was forced to put her life on hold.

Among the symptoms were stomach issues, hair loss, nails falling off, and a panic disorder that left her agoraphobic for a year. "A lot of people don't know I was agoraphobic for a year that I didn't leave my parents' home. I had to move back in with them. Like I was really ill," she said.

"I had a whole life beginning in the city and I was a young actor and I had to stop everything," she continued. The actress said she became "deeply depressed" and began having "thoughts of suicide" as doctors struggled to pinpoint what was wrong.

"They brought me to a psychologist, like they had me on every medication," she recalled. "They wanted to give me shock treatment at one point because I wasn't responding. I'm very sensitive to medication. It was a really bad time. And my mother had people pray over me."

Esposito said she eventually started to suspect that her physical and mental symptoms could be tied to nutrition. "I realized that there was a major connection with what I was eating and my vitamins and then my body," she said.

Her health began to "collapse" while she was filming the ABC comedy "Samantha Who?," which aired from 2007 to 2009. "I had hair falling out, nails falling off," she said. Then, she revealed, a tooth fell out mid-scene.

"A tooth fell out of my mouth, like literally in the middle of a scene," Esposito recalled. "I was mortified but also had been so ill that I just — I went hysterical. Like, somebody has to help me."

Esposito said she was misdiagnosed repeatedly, with doctors floating conditions ranging from multiple sclerosis to irritable bowel syndrome. One therapist even suggested stress was the culprit. "Talk about gaslighting," she remarked.

"We don't ever treat the actual underlying issue. We treat symptoms in this country, in America," Esposito continued. "I went for years on that, and I tried everything myself. I went to holistic healers. I went to get my aura cleansed. I was vegan."

Desperate for answers, Esposito said she began attending a non-denominational church in hopes of feeling "recharged." On one drive there, she found herself reaching a breaking point.

"I remember saying to myself, because I was so depressed of being so sick all the time and fighting panic disorders […], 'If you don't get a diagnosis, you have to accept the fact that you're crazy, and you've created this, and you're going to let it go because I can't keep doing this.'"

Moments later, she said, a large piece of wood flew off a truck ahead of her and smashed through her windshield. After pulling over, shaken, she took the frightening accident as a sign to keep searching for answers.

Two days later, Esposito said, a doctor called with her diagnosis: celiac disease. The autoimmune condition causes the body to react to gluten — a protein found in wheat, barley, and rye — triggering damage to the small intestine.

After her diagnosis, Esposito cut gluten from her diet immediately, but her body was in such poor shape that recovery proved brutal. About two months later, she began seeing a specialist who wanted to study her case given its severity.

She underwent regular blood and urine testing, but during one appointment, Esposito said she was in such distress that she begged the doctor not to send her home.

"Doctor, you got to keep me here because I'm jumping out of my skin. I'm going to jump out the window," she recalled saying. The remark, she said, was interpreted as a threat of self-harm. Within half an hour, she was admitted to a psychiatric ward under the alias "Betty Franklin."

"I will say it was seven of the most excruciating hours of my entire life because I was yet again pleading for my sanity," she said. She was eventually released, and it was then that she took a far more active role in understanding her condition and recovery.

"If you heal your gut, I promise you, not everything can go away," she said, adding that healing "takes time." Now living outside the United States, Esposito says she enjoys a slower, calmer pace of life.

"There's a grace given for enjoyment in life," Esposito said. "I just think we've lost the plot with that. And no wonder why we're all sick."