Jeezy ‘didn’t know’ he suffered from depression for almost a decade

Jeezy revealed that he once suffered from depression and didn’t even realize it because his mental disorder went undiagnosed for almost a decade.

The trap pioneer stopped at Show at the Tamron Hall Monday October 16 to promote its Adversity for sale memoir and spoke about his mental health struggles.

I learned that vulnerability is power, he said. I thought there was something wrong with me, I thought I came from poverty, that’s how it is. I didn’t understand trauma and all these different things, so when I started to find the words to describe it, I started to understand and grab the tools, [and] I started to get better.

I started my journey and that’s why I express it and put it in the book because I didn’t know that I was depressed for about eight years of my life straight.

Jeezy continued to explain that he sometimes felt numb because of the loss of so many people close to him.

You wake up and you just want to go back to sleep forever, you know? he added. And I leaned on my vices. And that’s what life on the streets does to you. You know what I’m saying? When you lose 200, 300, 400 people as gone forever, you become numb.

And I couldn’t get in touch with my emotions and I wondered why. Thank God for my children, but there was a time when I was just cold. It was when I was Young Jeezy.

Watch the interview below:

The snowman previously spoke about his battle with depression during an interview with PEOPLE in August, remembering the brief moment he almost took his own life.

The Atlanta rapper explained that as a teenager he participated in the Youth Challenge program in Fort Stewart, Georgia, after years of dealing drugs and stealing cars.

The nine-month program taught him structure and helped him focus, he said, but as it neared its end, dark thoughts began to creep in.

I remember standing there and thinking, Man, what if you go home and don’t understand this. Because I don’t want to end up like my friends, he remembers. My friends became drug addicts and they were getting killed and all that kind of stuff.

So it was all in my head. It was for a brief moment, I’d say at least about 10 minutes, that I actually considered jumping in the water. I have never had suicidal thoughts, but I [thought], Well, shit, if I jump in the water, I don’t need to worry about this. I don’t have to go home. I must not do any of these things.

However, Jeezy said he didn’t do it because something inside him said: No, brother. You’re going to have to be a man. You’re going to have to go home. You have to understand this. When he left the youth program, he thought he was ready for anything.

Meanwhile, the 46-year-old filed for divorce from his wife Jeannie Mai last month after two and a half years of marriage, which he says is irretrievably broken.

The former couple reportedly still lives under the same roof in their home in Georgia for the sake of their one-year-old daughter, Monaco.