Paris Jackson is looking back very differently at the treatment she received as a teenager, saying a Utah facility she once publicly credited with helping her ultimately left her carrying additional trauma for years.
The 28-year-old musician spoke about the experience during the Aug. 17 episode of On Purpose with Jay Shetty. Jackson said she was sent into adolescent treatment following a suicide attempt at 15 and now believes she left one of the facilities with “more PTSD than I went in there with.”
Jackson said she continued having nightmares about being sent back for two or three years afterward. She emphasized that she did not experience physical or sexual abuse at the facility she was discussing, but described psychological, emotional and spiritual abuse that made it difficult to know whom she could trust.
The interview also covered the broader mental health and addiction struggles Jackson has discussed publicly for years, including multiple suicide attempts and her path to sobriety.
Jackson Says She Learned to ‘Play the Game’ to Get Out
Jackson described an environment in which she felt patients could be turned against one another and private conversations could lead to consequences. “Each one was different,” she said of the adolescent treatment facilities she experienced. “I know some people that have been to the ones that were not as bad or worse.”
Discussing the Utah facility in particular, Jackson said, “I definitely left with more PTSD than I went in there with,” adding that she had nightmares about returning for two or three years after leaving. Jackson characterized herself as “one of the lucky ones” because she said she did not experience physical or sexual abuse there.
“There was definitely a lot of psychological, emotional, spiritual abuse that happened there,” she said, according to PEOPLE. One example she gave was staff allegedly pitting clients against one another. Jackson said she felt unable to trust her roommate or even her therapist because something she disclosed could affect her status within the program.
She also recalled feeling unable to speak candidly with family members because calls could be monitored. Jackson alleged that if a patient complained, staff could contact relatives and tell them not to believe what the teenager was saying.
That atmosphere, she said, taught her to focus on understanding what the program expected from her. “You have to learn how to kind of play the game if you want to get out,” Jackson said.
She Once Described Her Utah Treatment Much Differently
Jackson’s current assessment stands in sharp contrast to what she said publicly about a Utah therapeutic school nearly a decade ago. In a 2017 Rolling Stone interview, Jackson discussed being sent to a therapeutic school in Utah after her teenage mental health crisis and initially described the experience as beneficial.
“It was great for me,” she said at the time, adding that she had emerged as “a completely different person” after struggling with depression and anxiety without the help she needed.
But her view had already changed substantially by 2020. That year, while supporting Paris Hilton after Hilton spoke publicly about her own experience at a Utah boarding school, Jackson said she had spent almost two years at a behavior-modification boarding school as a teenager and had since been diagnosed with PTSD because of the experience.
Jackson said at the time that she continued to experience nightmares and trust issues. She also said other women she remained friends with from the program reported similar symptoms.
Jackson Has Spoken About Multiple Mental Health Crises
Jackson also discussed the circumstances that led her into treatment. She told Shetty that her first suicide attempt came at 15 following a period in which substance use and untreated mental illness had made life feel increasingly unbearable.
Jackson has spoken about suicide attempts before, including in her 2017 Rolling Stone interview. In the new conversation, she said there had been “quite a few” over the years, according to Entertainment Weekly.
Jackson told Shetty that she remembered experiencing a persistent sense of loneliness from childhood even when she was surrounded by people who loved her. Substance use later became what she described as a temporary way to quiet feelings and thoughts she did not know how to manage.
She eventually reached what she considered her “rock bottom” and began building a life in sobriety. Jackson celebrated six years sober in January 2026.
Six Years of Sobriety Did Not Make Every Struggle Disappear
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Jackson has repeatedly emphasized that sobriety did not mean her depression or other mental health struggles simply vanished. In a January Instagram post marking six years sober, she wrote that “getting sober ain’t always the indication that life is perfect” and acknowledged that she had gone through an especially difficult period several years into recovery.
During her conversation with Shetty, Jackson said she now relies on what she calls a “spiritual toolkit,” including regular therapy, meditation and prayer. She also discussed undergoing electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT, after experiencing another serious decline in her mental health around the time she reached five years of sobriety.
Jackson said she underwent nine ECT sessions over three weeks. She pushed back against the idea that the modern treatment was “barbaric,” explaining that she was under general anesthesia, but said the aftermath could be physically painful and that she experienced memory effects.
Jackson said she did not believe repeatedly undergoing ECT indefinitely was a sustainable solution for her, so she continued exploring other ways to manage her mental health. She now works with a behavioral specialist and has discussed using different forms of therapy and practices aimed at regulating her nervous system and addressing the underlying issues behind her symptoms.
Jackson Says Recovery Means Accepting That Pain Can Return
She told Shetty that there had been a period when she bounced between feeling that she could not continue living and recognizing that she was still here despite repeated attempts to escape what she was feeling. “The good or the bad, the light and the heavy, these are all things that are part of the experience,” she said.
That philosophy also informs the way she now talks about recovery. She said she tries to remember during difficult periods that emotions change and that she has survived those periods before.
“I think happiness is temporary. I think pain is temporary,” she told Shetty. The difference now, she said, is carrying the knowledge that there can be another way through a dark period.
Her New Album Arrives Days After the Interview
Her second full-length solo album, Happiest Day of My Life, is scheduled for release Aug. 21 through Dragonflower Enterprises and Republic Records. The 11-track project follows her 2020 debut album, Wilted.
Jackson’s recent mental health experiences are reflected directly in the new project. She has said the striking album cover, which depicts her with a bite guard in her mouth, was inspired by her experience undergoing ECT.