You might not think it since he’s had such a great life to date, but Dwayne Johnson has been battling depression for much of his life in secret. The 45-year old superstar has had an amazing career since he started taking off in the WWE and then once he left the squared circle for Hollywood. He would bounce back and forth for a while and has even been back to the WWE a time or two in the last couple of years, but right now his place is on film. The only thing that’s really surprising is that since the age of 15 he’s been battling a serious case of depression that seems like it might be something he was predisposed towards from a young age.
He’s gone on to recount a story about how his mother tried to commit suicide by walking into oncoming traffic. Johnson managed to pull her back off the road, but his mother didn’t have a single memory of trying to kill herself. Since then he’s been fighting the depression on a constant basis. There have been times when he hasn’t wanted to go anywhere, to do anything, and in short just didn’t want to be around anyone. Depression is a horrible thing to have to go through and makes a person ultimately feel as though they are all alone without a friend in the world to talk to. That feeling of emptiness is enough to drive some people mad and even cause them to think of harming themselves without any regard to what it will do to those that genuinely care about them. There are those that might scoff and claim that depression is a cop out and only needs medication to make it better. Some might even state that people need to get over themselves and realize that everyone has problems.
Depression doesn’t work like that. When you’re depressed, truly depressed, the world seems to be against you no matter how much anyone says otherwise. The chemical imbalance in the brain during these bouts wreaks havoc on the individual’s mindset and forces them to believe that people are against them for no better reason than because they’re a piece of human garbage. There are ways to counter depression but medications are not the only way. Instead, counseling and just being understanding and talking it out can go a long way towards helping someone that’s so depressed that they can’t cope with their life.
A big part of it is just being there for that person, and having the patience while taking the time to listen to them no matter what comes. Dwayne Johnson is such an electrifying guy onscreen that it’s hard to believe that he’s dealt with depression for so long, but people don’t just open up about it unless they’ve found a way to handle it somehow. There’s no doubt that his own personal demons are still there, as such things don’t just go away, but he’s obviously learned how to cope with them and grant them less of a hold over his life.
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