Peter Andre
Our columnist Peter Andre opens up to new about his experience with therapy after years of anxiety
He’s a family man with a long and successful career, but Peter Andre has revealed he needed professional help to get him to such a happy place.
“I’m very happy that I haven’t had therapy for years, but the reason for that is because for me, 100 per cent, the therapy worked,” Pete exclusively told
new. “I had it for a long time when I suffered chronic anxiety, which led to deep depression. I had therapy for more than 10 years, not just a couple of weeks. It takes a long time to address issues, deal with them and file them away. I’m so happy for what I learnt in therapy and now I feel fantastic.”
The 47-year-old, who is dad to Amelia, six, and Theo, three, with wife Emily, and Junior, 15, and Princess, 13, with ex-wife Katie Price, added, “I’m really relaxed and really comfortable. Everyone has worries in life, but I tend to be a much more glass half full kind of guy these days. That’s why I’m always smiling – because I wasn’t for so long.”
Pete first started suffering with anxiety and panic attacks more than 20 years ago. He explained that being able to talk openly about his emotions helped him conquer his demons.
“Talking is amazing because half of the problem is not realising you’ve got a problem,” he told us. “So when you can talk about something, you’re actually doing the first part of therapy, which is acknowledging what’s bothering you. But in the 90s, it was very weird to tell someone you had anxiety or depression. People would be like, ‘What are you talking about?’
“And you couldn’t call it mental health because only certain things fell into that category back then. I wasn’t by nature a depressed person, but I fell into a depression because of the chronic anxiety. It certainly was a difficult part of my life. I very much support mental health campaigns and I’m so glad people are talking about it more.”
The star has previously opened up about his mental health battles, admitting he got to some “very dark points”.
“I remember praying to God,
‘Please get me through this day, just to get through one more day.’ That’s how bad it got,” he said last year.
Last week, he candidly discussed his experience with therapy while chatting to Vicky Pattison on her podcast Vicky Pattison: The Secret To.
On his decision to get help, he said, “I went into therapy for a lot of my problems earlier, like my anxiety and depression. It was at that moment when I started talking that I started to feel better and I thought, ‘Well, the only way I’m going to feel better is if I talk about it.’ And then I didn’t realise that actually was a self-fulfilling prophecy that I became stronger by showing my weakness.” We’re glad to see you so happy now, Pete.