She survived horrors in HS
Saoirse Kennedy Hill had been grappling with depression for most of her young life — a struggle only compounded by a sexual assault in high school that drove her to attempt suicide.
The 22-year-old granddaughter of Robert F. Kennedy penned a piece about her mental-health issues as a senior at Deerfield Academy, an exclusive private high school in Massachusetts.
“My depression took root in the beginning of my middle school years and will be with me for the rest of my life,” she wrote in 2016 for the school’s newspaper, the Deerfield Scroll.
Describing her depression as the “friend” she never wanted, Hill said it peaked two weeks before the start of her junior year.
“My sense of well-being was already compromised, and I totally lost it after someone I knew and loved broke serious sexual boundaries with me,” she wrote. “I did the worst thing a victim can do, and I pretended it hadn’t happened. This all became too much, and I attempted to take my own life.”
She did not divulge details of the assault.
Hill faced other trauma as a child.
In addition to what a family friend told The Post was “a very difficult upbringing,’’ which included her parents’ split, Hill was the victim of an attempted abduction in Cape Cod.
In 2007, when she was 10, two men in a white van approached Hill outside her family’s sprawling waterfront compound in Hyannis Port, asking her if she needed a ride as she walked home from playing tennis, Boston’s ABC affiliate reported at the time.
She ran home and told another girl about the incident. The child’s mother then called police.
The privileged beautiful Kennedy co-ed, who was studying communications at Boston College, spent her final years championing the #MeToo movement and gun reform.
She tweeted about the effects of the viral women’s rights movement as part of her social-media and social-justice class.
“The sensationalization of claims made by women who are victims of sexual harassment and assault is one of the biggest issues the movement is tackling,” Hill wrote in one tweet. “Believing victims when they come forth is an important step in the fight against sexual assault.”
At Boston College, where she was set to graduate next year, she also served as a member of the College Democrats.
Last year, Hill accompanied her mother, Courtney Kennedy Hill, RFK’s fifth child, to a March For Our Lives rally in Cape Cod, the Barnstable Patriot reported.
Hill also once tried her hand at acting, appearing in the 2016 short film “Cherry Frosting,” about a cult of teenage runaways, according to IMDb.
Deerfield Academy on Friday hailed Hill as a “strong and selfless advocate for others.”
“Saoirse was bright and kind, and we are deeply saddened by this news,” the school said in a statement.