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In a new interview with Essence, Michelle Williams chopped it up about her broken relationship with Chad Johnson, and a nervous breakdown she suffered while performing on Broadway. She credits her breaking point to doing too many things at one time:

“I was actually filming the Chad Loves Michelle show and randomly said, ‘I want to get back on Broadway.’ It’s like I spoke it up. I wanted to be in the season where I did everything. Why should I have to space things out? I thought. I can do everything at once. Well, I got so overwhelmed in that season that by the time I got to rehearsals for ‘Once on This Island,’ I was already depleted and exhausted.”

Williams admitted that her strong work ethic came from her time with Destiny’s Child. In her twenty year career, she has only missed one show. That may seem like an admirable trait, but it came at a huge cost:

“I was weak, very depressed and thinking it was the end of my life. If someone had asked me where I would be today, I didn’t think I would be alive, because I was so broken. It felt as though I had failed publicly and privately too, and that was just not like me.”

Williams is now taking time off to get back to her “first love,” God. She’s also back in church and feeling like herself again:

“I’m in a church where I’m being discipled. I don’t have to wear makeup. I can just go in and worship the Lord—go to church and just be. I’m getting back to my first love, which is God. And that had been a part of my success before. I was serving God. I’m forming that habit again.”

Michelle’s advice for anyone who feels like she did:

“Allow yourself to feel the pain of what you’re feeling, okay? But then tell yourself you’ve got to get up. Because some people won’t tell you to get up or know what to say. I pray you find that inner strength to say, Okay, I’ve been down. I’ve been in this bed too long. I’ve got to get up.”

Check out her entire interview here.