Janet Jackson is fierce, she is strong, she is "Miss Jackson if you're nasty," but she's also human. And in her thirties, the pop icon was battling something bigger than herself: depression.

“I struggled with depression. The struggle was intense,” Jackson wrote in a letter shared with Essence magazine. “Low self-esteem might be rooted in childhood feelings of inferiority. It could relate to failing to meet impossibly high standards. And of course there are always the societal issues of racism and sexism. Put it all together and depression is a tenacious and scary condition. Thankfully, I found my way through it.”

Now, the 52-year-old singer finds joy in her life, especially in her 1-year-old son, Eissa Al Mana.

“The height of happiness is holding my baby son in my arms and hearing him coo, or when I look into his smiling eyes and watch him respond to my tenderness,” she writes. “When I kiss him. When I sing him softly to sleep. During those sacred times, happiness is everywhere.”

Later in the letter, she touches on the #MeToo movement and the importance of female empowerment.

“We are living at a time in history when women all over the world are refusing to be controlled, manipulated, exploited or abused,” she proclaims. “We have found our strength, and we will not relent.”

 

Janet Jackson's Style through the Years:

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