Jennifer Esposito’s Gluten Detox Had Her on Four Klonopin a Day and Sleeping in Her Kitchen. She Told Her Doctor She Wanted to Jump Out the Window and Was Wheeled to the Psych Ward in 30 Minutes
· Thought Catalog
Updated 41 minutes ago, August 14, 2026
Esposito was vitamin deprived and, by her own account, a trembling mess who slept on her kitchen floor because it was the only room with no window. Even the light was enough to set off the shaking.
The former Blue Bloods actress described the ordeal on the Aug. 11 episode of the Heal Squad podcast, tracing it back to the gluten detox she started after her celiac diagnosis about 15 years ago. She says a doctor she called a “famous medical expert” was seeing her weekly and wanted to study her because she was so ill.
One week she was in bad enough shape that she pleaded, “Doctor, you’ve got to keep me here. I’m going to jump out of my skin. I’m gonna jump out the window.” She says the words were taken as a threat to herself, and within half an hour she was wheeled upstairs.
She calls those 7 hours some of the worst of her life, saying you can’t lock someone with a panic disorder in a locked space. Her father, Robert Esposito, eventually checked her out and took her home.
The experience cost her whatever faith she had in her medical team. “They’re so quick to put a label of ‘crazy,'” she said, “and they’re so quick because they don’t understand anything beyond their pills.”
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