In a video uploaded to YouTube and promoted by her father’s administration today, Chiara de Blasio, the 19 year-old daughter of mayor-elect Bill de Blasio, confirmed that she has struggled with depression and substance abuse:

"It made it easier, the more I drank and did drugs, to share some common ground with people who I wouldn't have. It didn't start out as a huge thing for me, but then it became a very huge thing for me."

In the video, Chiara, who says she's suffered from depression since adolescence, details how enrolling at Santa Clara University exacerbated her drug abuse, and how she sought treatment at an in-patient center in New York City—encouraging anyone encountering the same struggles she did to reach out for help.

Chiara’s then-only-rumored drug abuse was a major, though effectively hidden, topic of discussion among reporters covering the New York mayoral race over the summer and fall of 2013. Concerns about those rumors, multiple sources told Gawker, led the de Blasio campaign to be extra-careful about press coverage of Chiara, especially the name of her college.