Abrams filed for divorce from Garth in 2018, but the two reconciled one year later and remain married
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(jpeg)/jennie-garth-luca-faccinelli-dava-abrams-041426-9b7329be38ca486fb286b241634f6cac.jpg "Luca Faccinelli, Jennie Garth, Dave Abrams")
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NEED TO KNOW
- Jennie Garth reveals she turned to self-harm during her separation from husband Dave Abrams
- Garth’s daughter Luca witnessed the incident and helped her mother, prompting a turning point in their relationship
- The actress says her struggles have brought her closer to her three daughters and shaped their understanding of resilience
Jennie Garth is opening up about a difficult time in her life.
In her new memoir, I Choose Me: Chasing Joy, Finding Purpose, and Embracing Reinvention, out now, the Beverly Hills, 90210 star, 54, wrote about the period of time she was separated from husband Dave Abrams.
Garth shared that she was so upset over the split that she turned to drinking and ultimately self-harming. The actress said that one night, her daughter, Luca, 28, witnessed her shattering framed photos of herself and Abrams and then using the glass shards to self-harm.
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Credit: Jennie Garth Instagram
"I was certainly not in my right mind. It was almost an unconscious act, a form of punishment," Garth wrote.
She explained that Luca walked in on her and immediately began helping her clean up the mess. Garth said that she regrets putting her daughter in that position, saying, "I was terrified that I had caused irreparable damage to my relationship with my daughter."
"I was hurting my daughter by letting her see me like that. This was one of those regrets in life that stay with you forever," Garth wrote. "Luca said, 'You can't go on like this Mom. We need you.'"
Credit: Jennie Garth Instagram
Abrams filed for divorce from Garth in 2018. However, one year later, the two reconciled and have been together ever since.
In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE about her memoir, Garth shared that she's "very close" with her daughters — Luca, Lola, 23, and Fiona, 19, whom she shares with ex-husband Peter Facinelli.
"People might say co-dependent, but I like to say interdependent because we are just such a tight little family," said Garth of her three daughters. "And I'm good with interdependent. I feel good about that."
"But I feel like they know more about what's going to come to them in life. They've seen me have the challenges. They've seen me fail. They've seen me not handle things the right way," she continued. "They've seen me in pain. They've seen me suffer."
"And I just don't want them to go in life and think everybody is going to be great because that's just not the truth and it's unattainable."
Garth went on to say that she wants her daughters to understand that you have to fail to learn.
"And I think they've seen me do that up close and personal just enough to know that, yeah, I'm a human, I'm making this up as we're going," she said. "We're growing up together basically, and I think it's brought us closer. I definitely was born to be a mom. I've always said of anything I've ever done, being a mom is what I'm best at."