Larry Stricklanddistinctly remembers the months leading up toNaomi Judd’s death on April 30.
“It was a very chaotic, hectic, hectic time,” Strickland, 76, tells PEOPLE from the home in Tennessee he once shared with his wife. “It was extremely hard. She had several therapists that she was seeing, and her energy level had gotten really low. She was getting really weak.”
“Nobody can understand it unless you’ve been there,” Judd, who was 76 when she died, once shared with PEOPLE. “Think of your very worst day of your whole life – someone passed away, you lost your job, you found out you were being betrayed, that your child had a rare disease – you can take all of those at once and put them together and that’s what depression feels like.”
Naomi Judd and Larry Strickland.Harry Langdon/Getty
Although Strickland was aware his wife was struggling, he admits he wasn’t privy to how bad things were.
“I just feel like I might have overdone it,” the former backup singer forElvis Presleyexplains. “I was trying to get her to eat. I was trying to get her to exercise. I handled her medications and had to make sure she had what she needed. I was trying every way I could.”
Notes from Naomi Judd.Hollis Bennett
Looking back, he wishes he had handled Judd’s mental health complications a bit differently.
“If I had known where she was, I would’ve been much softer on her,” Strickland says. “I would’ve been gentler and more understanding instead of tired and exhausted because it was wearing me out, too. To know now that she was contemplating [suicide], I look back and just wish I had been holding her and comforting her instead of pushing her. I don’t know if that would’ve helped, but it certainly wouldn’t have hurt.”
Larry Strickland.Hollis Bennett
Judd’s loving husband of 33 years never left her for long, always making sure someone was with the singer and that she was well taken care of, even at the expense of his own health.
“For the past 13 years or more, I was with her 24/7,” Strickland says. “I never left the house without Naomi knowing where I was going and when I would be back. As far as taking care of myself, I’m not sure that fits my situation. When you have a mate that has a mental illness, you walk that path with them.”
Strickland has been leaning on the country queen’s two daughters,Ashley, 54, andWynonna,58, for support since his wife’s death. “We need each other so much to cling to, and the comfort of our relationship — we have to have that,” he tells PEOPLE.
Larry Strickland, Ashley Judd and Wynonna Judd.Mickey Bernal/Getty
Another source of healing for Strickland has been talking about his own mental health journey through theAcademy of Country Music’s Lifting Livesdigital series,The Check-In. The platform features discussions with leading country music artists about their own psychological and emotional challenges in recent years as they share how they’ve learned to overcome them.
“I was used to staying in the background,” he says. “But after going through what our family’s gone through — the tragedy, the trauma — it changes you.”
source: people.com
