Dwayne Johnson is opening up about the various struggles with depression he’s experienced throughout his life.
Appearing on “The Pivot Podcast”, Johnson recalled his first experience with depression came when a shoulder injury impacted what had been a promising football career at the University of Miami.
“My first battle with depression was down there in Miami. I didn’t want to go to school, I was ready to leave. I left school. I didn’t take any midterms and I just left,” he recalled. “But the interesting thing at that time is, I just didn’t know what it was. I didn’t know what mental health was, I didn’t know what depression was. I just knew I didn’t wanna be there.”
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He continued: “I wasn’t going to any of the team meetings, wasn’t participating in anything, wasn’t working out. And you know for us, as athletes, just any kind of sweat and getting it in will get that s**t out of you. I couldn’t do it because of my shoulder. So at that time, that was a tough one for me and again, I didn’t know what it was.”
Depression, he continued, was something that kept recurring throughout his life.
“Years later, I went through it again when I got a divorce — didn’t know that it was. Years later, around 2017 or so, I went through it a little bit. Knew what it was at that time and luckily I had some friends that I could lean on and say, ‘Hey, I’m feeling a little wobbly now. I got a little struggle happening, seeing a little grey and not the blue.'”
According to Johnson, the “saving grace” has been the joy he experiences from his three daughters, Tiana, 5, Jasmine, 7, and Simone, 21.
“I’ve worked hard over the years to gain the emotional tools to work through any mental pain that may come to test me. But years ago I didn’t know what mental health struggle was. As men, we didn’t talk about it. We just kept our head down and worked through it. Not healthy but it’s all we knew,” Johnson wrote in an Instagram post, sharing a portion of his interview.
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“If you’re going through your own version of mental wellness turning into mental hell-ness, the most important thing you can do is talk to somebody,” he added. “It can’t be fixed if you keep that pain inside. Having the courage to talk to someone is your superpower. I lost two friends to suicide. Talk to someone. Despite how you may feel, you’re never alone.”
