Miss USA 2019 Cheslie Kryst's posthumous memoir talks about unbelongingness, pressures of success before suicide
Trigger warning: This article contains mentions of suicide and depression.
In her upcoming posthumous memoir, Miss USA 2019 Cheslie Kryst talked about the “unshakable feeling” that she didn’t belong and the pressures of success, among other things, which led to her suicide in 2022.
PEOPLE Magazine reported that before her death, Kryst left a note to her mother April Simpkins, who also served as co-author, about helping get the memoir she had been writing to get published.
In the book, titled By the Time You Read This: The Space Between Cheslie’s Smile and Mental Illness, Kryst said she carried with her an "unshakable feeling that I did not belong" and battled a "constant inner voice repeating 'never enough.’”
"I had to be perfect because I had to represent for all youth, women, and Black people who also wanted to be in the room but had been denied access,” she’s quoted as saying.
In the book’s excerpts obtained by PEOPLE, Kryst recalled winning Miss USA 2019 at 28, the oldest ever crowned, and the backlash she received at the time.
She said she deleted vomit-faced emojis all over her feed and received messages that included an order to kill herself.
“All of this only added to my long-standing insecurities—the feeling that everyone around me knew more than I did, that everyone else was better at my job, and that I didn’t deserve this title,” she said.
The ensuing media coverage, meanwhile, made her feel “like a failure” due to her responses, believing she could’ve done better.
“Winning Miss USA hadn’t made my imposter syndrome go away. Instead, I was waiting for people to realize I didn’t have a clue about what I was doing,” she said.
Simpkins, meanwhile, recalled the fateful day of Jan. 30, 2022, when she got a text from her daughter: “First, I’m sorry. By the time you get this, I won’t be alive anymore, and it makes me even more sad to write this because I know it will hurt you the most.”
During her daughter’s funeral, Simpkins said she has to survive because her family shouldn’t start burying her soon after Kryst.
“If I died, who would tell the world all the incredible things I knew about my baby girl?” she said.
Simpkins said that Kryst, “[d]espite the many ways depression tried to rob her of joy, with near-constant headaches, loneliness, hopelessness, sadness, and a feeling of unworthiness, she still found a way to smile, love, and give.”
Simpkins also noted that Kryst’s death was “not an emotion-fueled, spontaneous decision,” or something Kryst “did” to her or anyone else.
“She’d sent me that final text message to comfort me and to explain the depth of the pain she had carried,” she said.
Kryst died on Jan. 30, 2022. She was 30.
The following February, Simpkins said Kryst was struggling with “high-functioning depression.”
The book is on April 23. Proceeds will go to the Cheslie C. Kryst Foundation, which supports mental health programs for youth and young adults.
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If you think you, your friend, or your family member is considering self-harm or suicide, you may call the National Mental Health Crisis Hotline at 1553 (Luzon-wide, landline toll-free), 0966-351-4518 or 0917-899-USAP (8727) for Globe/TM users, or 0908-639-2672 for Smart users.
