“You have to accept what happened”

Cheslie Kryst’s mother is fulfilling her daughter’s last wish to publish her memoirs.

Two years after Kryst’s suicide, April Simpkins shares intimate details of her 22-year-old daughter’s life in her newly published book, “By the Time You Read This: The Space Between Cheslie’s Smile and Mental Illness.”

According to People Magazine, Kryst wrote the book, which Simpkins accomplished after her death, to help others combating mental health issues. Simpkins also helped launch the Cheslie C. Kryst Foundation, which is able to profit from proceeds from sales of the book and support mental health programs for adolescents and young adults.

“I knew I had to do it,” said Simpkins, a mental health advocate and ambassador for the National Mental Health Alliance. “Doing something that was so important to her was a phenomenal feeling. When I finished, I saw the sun for the first time and I could breathe.”

By the age of 30, Kryst had earned a law degree and an MBA, had been crowned Miss USA and worked as an Emmy-nominated correspondent for “Extra.” Still, she wrote in her memoirs that she had “an unshakable feeling that I didn’t fit in” and struggled with “a constant inner voice that kept saying ‘it’s never enough’.”

Expressing the pressure of success, she added: “I had to be perfect because I had to represent all the youth, women and black people who also wanted to be in the room but were denied access.”

While the news of Kryst’s death shocked those that knew her only as a beauty queen with multiple degrees and a prestigious job, Simpkins understood the gravity of her daughter’s struggles.

She admitted that despite Kryst’s outstanding personality, she had all the time struggled with depression. In 2015, she tried to commit suicide.

“I was blindsided,” Simpkins said. “I thought we could talk about anything, so when I got that phone call, I was replaying the conversations in my head and thinking, ‘Why didn’t she feel comfortable enough to talk to me?'”

Simpkins said that after Kryst’s first suicide attempt, she begged God for “more time” together with her daughter and used that point as best she could. She dedicated herself to supporting Kryst and learning “not to talk to her, but to listen to her.”

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Then on January 30, 2022, Kryst sent her mother a devastating text message wherein she described the private pain she had been through. She began it with a shocking passage: “When you understand this, I won’t be alive anymore.”

“I can no longer bear the crushing weight of constant sadness, hopelessness and loneliness,” she continued. “I cry almost on daily basis now, as if I were in mourning… I now not feel like I have any purpose in life. I do not know if I ever really did it.

Simpkins shared that when she first came upon Kryst had died, a part of her thought she was going to die from a broken heart. The grieving mother faced criticism from some on social media, who questioned why she was unaware of her daughter’s struggles or why she was unable to save her given their close relationship.

However, the mother of six stated that this can be a war that her daughter has been fighting for a few years and nobody is to blame.

As a mother, “you want to fight every battle and you want your children to know, ‘I’ve got your back,'” she said. “But mental illness is a battle you can’t fight on your child’s behalf.”

“I lived every day with her to the fullest,” Simpkins told People. “I can’t let guilt erase what we had together. I’m just grateful for all the days that Cheslie fought, won, and lived to fight another day. You have to accept what happened. You can’t change it. And what remains is gratitude.”