Jacinta Nampijinpa Price opens up about the ‘darkest period of her life’ and the secret she’s not proud of

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has candidly opened up about her battle with drug and alcohol abuse and suicidal thoughts in her new memoir.

Set to be launched this week, Matters of the Heart details the huge challenges she faced as a troubled young mother-of-three in her 20s who escaped domestic violence and how she ultimately got her life back on track.

‘It would be easy for me to gloss over this period, perhaps to briefly touch on it and move on, but there is no point in me telling my story if I’m not completely honest,’ the Coalition Senator told The Australian.

‘And that means sharing the darkest period of my life. It’s a time I’m not proud of, but one that very much shaped who I am today.’

She admitted that at times, she ‘treated people badly … I think I could have been a hell of a lot better friend.’

Ms Price told the ABC that taking the party drug ecstasy helped ‘fill an empty space, a chasm, trying to escape from how I was feeling’.

Though she was a mother to three young children – having first fell pregnant aged 17 – she would spend nights out with friends dancing and taking drugs.

But her wild lifestyle affected her health and her friendships in her mid-20s. ‘You can become selfish when you’re a drug user,’ she said.

Coalition Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price (pictured) has opened up about her battle with drug and alcohol abuse, in a candid new memoir, Matters of the Heart

When she escaped from a violent, abusive relationship between her first and second marriages, she turned to alcohol and drugs to escape from her own life.

She kept a lid on the drug and drink abuse when she had her children with her, but cut loose when they were with her ex-husband.

In those times, she was ‘hitting it hard’ and spiralled into addiction.

‘That cycle got me into a state of depression, self-loathing and anxiety,’ she said.

Ms Price often had suicidal thoughts and she began ‘breaking down emotionally a lot’.

Eventually, a doctor told her she had to ‘sort herself out’, following a diagnosis of drug-induced depression.

Country Liberal Party Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price (centre, in orange jacket) poses with young Indigenous supporters with an Australian flag

Ms Price admitted that at times, she ‘treated people badly … I think I could have been a hell of a lot better friend’

The best thing she did was to get counselling in Alice Springs.

‘I needed to pull myself out of that hole. I couldn’t self-destruct, and I wasn’t going to kill myself because of the behaviour and the conduct of somebody else,’ Senator Price said.

She also opened up about the awful abuse she saw when she was growing up, with Aboriginal women being the victims of drug and alcohol-fuelled violence.

‘Aboriginal women have never had a feminist movement,’ she told the NT News.

‘The expectation has been for Aboriginal women to toe the line, you know, don’t stand up for your own personal rights.

‘Instead, we stand up for the rights of our race and therefore put ourselves behind the rights of our race in terms of rights as women, as individuals in our own right.’

She promised to help other Aboriginal women in her role as Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs.

‘Every day I am in Canberra, I will focus on supporting Australians on the basis of need, not race,’ she writes in her book.

‘Because one thing I absolutely understand is that being Indigenous doesn’t automatically make you disadvantaged.

‘People are disadvantaged by poverty, by violence, by abuse – regardless of race.’

Matters of the Heart will be released this Wednesday in bookshops and online.

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