It’s encouraging to see many in the Marvel universe speaking out about their problems with anxiety, which shows the world that even superheroes can be vulnerable. Now Clark Gregg, aka Agent Phil Coulson, is the latest actor in the world of Marvel to speak out about maintaining healthy mental health.
As Gregg told Men’s Health, he started having “these strange episodes” when he was on vacation. One time he was in Provence, “sitting there in this incredibly beautiful place after working really hard, and I was really excited to be there…[but] I was sitting by myself, feeling as uncomfortable as you can possibly be in your own skin, and I thought, something’s wrong here. I would be in some of the most beautiful places in the world thinking I was quietly going insane.”
Gregg went through what a lot of people who suffer from anxiety experience. When he was working like crazy, he was okay, even when he had a stressful workload. “But when I would try to relax, I found that I would go into a different space that didn’t feel right. I felt anxious, but kind of disassociated, and I didn’t understand what was going on.”
Gregg described his anxiety symptoms as “very physical – kind of in my solar plexus, like electricity.” It took Gregg a while to figure out what was going on, and he finally put his symptoms into Google: “I found a book where the guy described what I had: almost a panic about feeling panicked.” The book taught Gregg about cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) “where you don’t try to resist the anxiety, but you welcome it, as scary as that is.” The book also taught Gregg exercises called “exposures,” where you “really incorporate the anxiety, and not hide from it.”
Gregg called cognitive behavioral therapy “a game changer…I find it calming to know that wherever I am, I don’t have to wonder if I have a pill nearby; I just know I can do these exercises, and it’s going to become manageable.”
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