Melissa Etheridge had considered the “possibility” of her “troubled” son Beckett overdosing before his death in May

She said: "There were things out of my control, of course. And there came a time when I needed to really sit down with myself and say, 'I can't save him. I can't give up my life and go try to live his life for him.' And I had to come up against the possibility that he might die. But I had to be able to go on living.

“Of course it's nothing a parent ever wants. But as a human being, I just needed to be at peace with a troubled son who did the best he could, who believed what he believed and then his life ended way, way too soon.”

And following his death, Melissa is attempting to move forward with her life after being wracked with guilt.

She added: "There will always be that that place in my heart and my soul that that has a little bit of 'Oh, what could I have done? And is it my fault he ended this way?' and all that sort of thing. And it just gets smaller and smaller, because it doesn't serve me anymore, and where he is now, he certainly doesn't want me to take that on.”

Melissa still “struggles” against her own desire to “give up”, but says she knows she has to keep going for the sake of her other children - Bailey, 23, and 13-year-old twins Johnnie Rose and Miller Steven.

She told Rolling Stone magazine: "I believe life is meant to be lived with as much joy as we can. But life is also a contrast. Life is also up and down. I've lived enough of it now to know. And you can't lay down. You can't be shattered. You can't die and give up. You know, that's what my son did. It's to be lived. It's to learn. I still struggle with it but that's what I can say.”