Prison Break’s Wentworth Miller named Out Magazine’s Newsmaker of the Year, talks suicide attempts

Three months after coming out in one of the most eloquent, inspiring ways possible, Prison Break‘s Wentworth Miller earned Out Magazine‘s Newsmaker of the Year title.

In his complementary interview, Wentworth opened up even more about struggling with his sexuality and his teenage suicide attempts.

“I remember carrying around deep feelings of shame after I tried to kill myself, feeling like I’d stumbled or failed life’s exam. That I was now ‘damaged goods,'” the 41-year-old actor/writer said. “What I would say to that younger self — what I’d say to anyone who’s walked a similar road — is to focus less on the fact that you nearly ended your life and more on the fact that you survived, that you lived to tell the tale.”

Wentworth previously spoke about his depression during a September event for the Human Rights Campaign, explaining his difficulties strengthened him — and he now hopes to share that strength with younger people.

“Let me be to someone else what no one was to me. Let me send a message to that kid, maybe in America, maybe someplace far overseas, maybe somewhere deep inside — a kid who is being targeted at home or at school or in the streets — that someone is watching and listening and caring, that there is an ‘us,’ that there is a ‘we,’ and that kid or teenager or adult is loved and they are not alone.”