Listen Live
92Q Listen Live
92Q Jams Featured Video
CLOSE

Rebbie Jackson will be touring the country with her daughter talking about mental illness.

Her daughter Yashi has struggled with schizophrenia and bipolar disease. She  admits coping with the problems faced by Yashi  one of her three children with childhood sweetheart Nathaniel Brown, has been difficult.

“A lot of people have these disorders and they don’t know it because there are very different degrees of bipolar. So many people have this but they can’t figure out what their problem is- Rebbie points out.

Yashi says coming from the famous Jackson family made it more difficult to cope with her mental health issues. “It was harder for sure, you feel like you constantly have to hold it together so technically you’re living a double life. You’re living in this world that you totally don’t understand then you leave and go into the public where you really have to have it together,” she said. “Of course growing up in a high profile family especially will make you feel like you need to be some sort of an example or be super strong to the people around you and not be yourself. Instead of saying,  ‘I have these challenges and other people have these same challenges and let’s communicate and talk about it’ as opposed to trying to act like they don’t exist or that you have it all together, which is really exacerbating it in the long run.”

Rebbie  will  be  helping others  in need by returning to the stage to headline the upcoming Pick Up the Phone Suicide Prevention Tour, which kicks off in Washington DC on Feb. 25.

Yashi is also preparing to make details of her battle public – she’s releasing a book called “Black Daisy in a White Limousine: 77 Poems, to help other sufferers.” The book The poems date back to when I was in my teens to now. You can see some of the emotional changes and you get a sense of the true honest expression of all the things I’ve experienced with life, with family, love and all of that. You get a sense of what it is that we’re talking about.”

The Tour Dates

02/25 – Washington DC Duke Ellington Theater

04/06 – Charlotte, NC

04/07 – Raleigh,NC

04.08 – Atlanta, GA

05/29- Vernon, NJ “Festival for Humanity”-Mountain Creek

For more information on how you can help or get help click here.

Related Stories