Big E Says Seeking Help For Mental Illness Saved His Life

Big E truly had a long and difficult road to the top of WWE. After a solid run on NXT, he was called up to the main roster but was eventually lost in the shuffle. It seems Big E opened up about his battle with mental illnesses.

Big E is currently the WWE Champion after putting in hard work for several years. He won the title after cashing in his Money In The Bank contract on Bobby Lashley a couple of months ago.

Since then, Big E has been booked as a solid champion and now bears the responsibility of being the champion. While speaking on MackMania, Big E talked about his mental health and revealed how seeking help for mental illness back at 19 saved his life.

”It took me a long, long time. I try my best to never tell anyone, ‘this is the way you need to go to overcome mental illness.’ We all have our own paths and what works for us. What worked for me; at 19 years old, I had a coach of mine, Rod Akin, who essentially forced me to go talk to someone. In many ways, it really saved my life. Even then, it took a while for me to get into the process. I think so much of how I was raised and just kind of the culture of what it meant to be a man. I always played football and was in the gym. What I was always told from peers and in the home, it was, ‘a man does not show vulnerability.

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You don’t cry, you don’t show weakness, you don’t talk about the way you feel or your emotions.’ Maybe that’s a protective device that allows you to get to a certain point in life without getting picked on too much and you build up these walls, but eventually it’s going to explode. It got to that point with me where it was ‘repress, repress, repress,’ but it’s not going anywhere. What has really helped me is just kind of leaning into the work. I was really opposed to this idea of ‘working’ people tell me in a relationship you have to work or you have to work on yourself. Who wants to do all that? To me, the work is really beautiful.”

Big E squared off against Roman Reigns at WWE Survivor Series in the main event of the show. Unfortunately, he was unable to beat The Tribal Cheif despite his best efforts. We will have to wait and see what is next in store for Big E.

h/t to Fightful for the quotes.

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