Ryan Reynolds is letting his fans know that they’re not alone in their struggles with mental health.
The Deadpool star posted a vulnerable note to his Instagram page on Wednesday, May 26, in which he talked about his battle with anxiety and his tendency to overthink things. In his post, he even acknowledges how late he is in posting about Mental Health Awareness Month, attributing that to the problems he continues to elaborate on in his post.
“May is almost over. It’s also Mental Health Awareness month. Which brings me to this,” he began.
“One of the reasons I‘m posting this so late is I overschedule myself and important things slip. And one of the reasons I overschedule myself is my lifelong pal, anxiety,” Reynolds wrote. “I know I’m not alone and more importantly, to all those like me who overschedule, overthink, overwork, over-worry and over-everything, please know you’re not alone.
He continued, “We don’t talk enough about mental health and don’t do enough to destigmatize talking about it. But, as with this point, better late than never, I hope...”
While fans are more used to seeing Reynolds crack jokes on social media than they are to seeing him be vulnerable, this actually isn’t the first time he’s spoken about his struggle with mental health. The actor opened up about his experience with anxiety in an interview with the New York times back in 2018.
“I have anxiety, I’ve always had anxiety,” he told the publication. “Both in the lighthearted ‘I’m anxious about this’ kind of thing, and I’ve been to the depths of the darker end of the spectrum, which is not fun.”
The star went on to reflect on the ways in which his anxiety has affected him since he was younger, sharing that he would wake up in the middle of the night “paralyzed” by worry in his 20s. Luckily, performing is one of the actor’s biggest outlets for keeping the bad thoughts at bay.
“When the curtain opens, I turn on this knucklehead, and he kind of takes over and goes away again once I walk off set,” he said. “That’s that great self-defense mechanism. I figure if you’re going to jump off a cliff, you might as well fly.”
