When looking at Terry Crews, it would not seem like he would face anxiety issues, but mental health does not concern itself with how a person looks.
Crews, the good-looking actor who is currently the host of America’s Got Talent, recently opened up about seeking therapy to help him deal with mental health issues.
Terry Crews on his mental health struggles
Terry Crews has opened up about his willingness to accept help when dealing with his own mental health issues.
He is doing so to help let others know that there is nothing wrong with seeking help no matter what they are dealing with.
“For almost my first 40 years on Earth, [toughness] was a battle to get up the earliest, to work the longest, to do the most work,” Crews said in an interview with Amy Morin on the “Verywell Mind Podcast.”
“I wore myself out.”
Before he was an actor, he was a professional athlete. Thanks to both jobs, he worked non-stop until he drove himself into the ground.
“This grind will eat you up alive,” Crews said. “It’s literally a grinder. And if you have that mindset, it will totally take you out in a lot of ways, and you’ll be over it before you think you’re started. But it can really, really eat you up.”
That is when he decided that he needed to change the definition of “toughness” in his own mind. He said that instead of defining it as throwing punches, he now defines it as taking blows and knowing how to understand his own weaknesses.
To do this, he sought help from a therapist.
Terry Crews on seeking therapy help
Terry Crews said that he couldn’t help himself on his own, and he reached out to a therapist to help him redefine how he lived his life.
“The obstacle was therapy itself,” Terry said. “In my community and where I grew up, it was therapy was seen as quackery. And actually doing something to really talk through your own issues, thinking about your own thinking was viewed as quackery.”
Luckily, he said a friend helped him realize that he needed to get better for himself, and it wasn’t about seeking “rewards.”
“Everything in my life was based on; if I do this, I’m supposed to get this. If I did this, I’m supposed to get this trophy. I’m supposed to get this money. If I do this, I get sex. If I do this, I get fame,” he said.
“You point all these things out, and intrinsically, you were hollow. And I was hollow. And finally, I was at rock bottom. My wife was gone. My family was gone. And I had no other choice. That whole phrase about you getting better for you meant therapy.”
America’s Got Talent airs on Tuesday nights at 8/7c on NBC.