Maurice Benard: [00:05:57] Thanks for having me.

Maurice Benard: [00:06:15] Well, you know, I’ve been sharing it or talking about it or whatever, however you want to say for like over 30 years. And it was important for me. Well, there’s a story that I say in the book where I was in the mental institution, and they put you in a seclusion room when you’re a bad boy, which means it’s four walls and you’re strapped down to a bed. And all I want to do is get out of that room and this whole thing with the with… I broke this latch off the wall and I started praying because I was thinking of doing myself in. And then I broke the latch and made it into a cross and put it by my bed. And I was praying to God, and I knew at that moment, deep, deep down inside, there was a reason why that was happening to me. And I think now I positively this is the reason.

Maurice Benard: [00:07:54] Well, what it was, was I was 21 in the mental institution, and I had my birthday, my 22nd birthday in there, which was not fun, but nobody could tell me what was wrong with me. They just couldn’t say what I had or what was going on. And I was like Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Guess he was the normal one. Somewhat normal. And everybody else was worse than him.

Maurice Benard: [00:08:25] So when I left the hospital, when I escaped, it was about a couple months after that that I went to see a guy, a psychiatrist named Dr. Noonan. And I remember sitting in the chair and him looking at me, but writing a lot of stuff that what I was saying. And at the end, he looked up and he said, you’re manic depressive and I’ll put you on lithium. It’s going to take a little while, but you’re going to get better. And I felt like, wow, OK. At least I know what I had. And that was it. It took a while to get better. But that was it. The beginning.

Maurice Benard: [00:09:19] Well, the love part came in when I met my wife. She was 16 and she turned 17. We pretty much started living together. Soon after that. And we’ve been together over 30 years. I mean, look, you know, my wife & I, there’s a lot of deep love there. And it’s pretty much safe to say that I don’t know if I’d be here if if she didn’t help me. It’d be real tough. I mean, I know, you know, I did it on my own, the first breakdown, which was the hardest. And I can’t believe I did it on my own. It was I mean, I had my mom and dad there, but they they would have to go to work while I was home alone. It was tough. But I’m still going through things and my wife is still help me out. Even the last two weeks, I had two major panic attacks and it took a couple weeks to get through it. And when you’re in these things, you think you can’t. But the reality is you can’t.

Maurice Benard: [00:11:02] Well, as far as, like, my nervous breakdowns or, you know, being bipolar, I even had an episode in 27 years because I stay on my medication. I stress if you find something that works. Stay on your medication. Seek professional help. Yes, you can buy my book and that may help you, but that’s not enough. I’ve been able to do it, obviously, with my wife and my kids and my mom and dad. Early on was they were just incredible. And what I do now. I mean, I can speak as I was just I’ve been doing it because I had two panic attacks two weeks ago. You got to get out of bed, man, because when I stay in bed. When I wake up. I have some maybe some negative thoughts. If I stay in bed too long. That’s going to cause depression. So what I do is I get out of bed and I kind of made my own routine here because you have to understand, I was on a routine going to work for 27 years. That’s what I knew. And now with the corona virus, that’s all changed. So what I do now is I get up. I work out. I meditate. I go play with my goats. And that’s kind of what I what what’s helped me. And you have to stay out of, you know. Like I always say, don’t let the the movie in your head be bigger than the virus. I know the virus is big, but if it’s our own minds that make it worse.

Maurice Benard: [00:13:17] Well, here’s my problem. My problem is as far as meditation and things like that, workout I’ve always done. But meditation, I kind of don’t do it. Even though I should until I have to. So in the last two weeks, I’ve been meditating and it has helped. And Charlamagne, the God, I was on his showed, he recommended an app called Calm and it’s a fantastic app and it gives you a different meditation everyday for ten minutes. I just did it outside & it was great. And but the thing that got me back in the last two weeks was really working out because what happened is I told my mind, even though it was very difficult. I said I’m sick of being sick. You know what I mean? So I went out in my garage and I start working out and I stopped that fight back. And with the fight back, it felt really good, at least for a moment, and then I started working out every day after that. It really has helped.

Maurice Benard: [00:14:29] Yes, yes. Then there’s also you have to eat. Well, the whole it’s a lot of things. I mean, take vitamin D, I mean, I’ve been taking Vitamin D and some other stuff, and you just gotta take care of yourself and stay out of your your negative thoughts. That’s a killer right there.

Maurice Benard: [00:15:20] Well, for me, I’ve got to tell you, when I was in a panic attack, you know, it’s in my book, but I’ve gotten off to clients. I’ve had them open the doors. And that’s a tough, tough thing. But now I’ve managed to get on planes because I just breathe. I breathe in four times, hold it four times and breathe out for five or six times. And that’s the pattern. And if you can breathe, you can breathe through your anxiety attack. You can breathe through it. And it calms down completely. So that’s one thing. And I have a thing that I do called state of mind every Sunday on Instagram story. I’ve been doing it for over a year speaking about mental illness of my life with mental health. And I call anxiety Freddy Krueger. So sometimes I wake up at night and Freddy’s looking at me, but you can’t run. You got to stay and fight Freddie. And by fighting him, I mean breathing in & you get rid of him. And sometimes, like the last two weeks, two weeks ago, he got the best of me for two nights. But I’m still standing.

Maurice Benard: [00:17:00] Absolutely. Breathing is in the moment and maybe take a pace around a bit, just a bit to get rid of some of that energy, that somewhat helps, but don’t keep pacing because then you’re going to screw yourself up.

Maurice Benard: [00:18:02] Well, yeah, that was in my last Instagram, actually, state of mind. Look, I went to work one day with a cut on my arm. It was a pretty decent cut. And people thought that I had gangrene. They couldn’t stop talking about. But I’ve gone to work literally on the verge of, I don’t know what, you get me? And everybody just. Oh, you’ll get over it. Oh, yeah. I had anxiety five years ago. It is such a total difference, obviously, because you don’t see it. And unless you’ve gone through what I’ve gone through other people with panic attacks and nervous breakdowns and depression, you don’t understand it because you don’t see it. But yet a cut on my arm. I was sent right to the doctor, but me crying in the corner of my room with anxiety, I just went right upstairs, did my scenes. Man, now I’m breathing heavy, just talking about it.

Maurice Benard: [00:19:41] I will say this. There is nothing, although the truth is I have never broken a bone or had a stitch, but there is nothing in my life that I felt more painful than depression, anxiety or a manic episode. There’s nothing more terrible for me than that. But the reality is, no matter how terrible it is, no matter how fragile I am, because I’m very strong in one way and fragile on the other. You can get through it. That’s the key. It’s not so terrible that you can’t get through it because you can’t. And I’m living proof and I’m still going through it.

Maurice Benard: [00:20:54] Especially men. Men don’t want to talk about still. Women are. You know, Lovato. And there’s quite a few other women who are talking about mental health, but men seem to not want to talk about it. And you know the responses I get from people over the past, I don’t know how long. But one just hit me and it’s not even a big deal. One woman just wrote because of state of mind, she says, I watch. I watch a lot. And she said. One thing that by watching you, I don’t feel alone & I don’t know why that hit me, because I guess I was figuring out what’s going on with people. They’re into this, but I don’t really get it. I mean, I get it, but not, you know. But by her saying that she’s not alone meant so much to me. And that’s why I continue to do it, because I was thinking here I am talking on this thing. No one’s responding back to me. It’s just me doing a little monologue. You know what I mean. And I said, what are people OK? Cool. It’s about mental health, but I don’t. And then I realized how many people are suffering from mental health. It is staggering how many people. And I’ll tell you, I get responses from people who are like, I don’t know what to do. My son is on the verge of wanting to end his life. And, you know, I get I get a bunch of responses like that. It is a it is what it is.

Maurice Benard: [00:23:14] Yeah, I don’t know. Honestly, if Nothing General About It would have done as well without the corona virus because I think people.

Maurice Benard: [00:23:31] Yeah, completely. It did with me. So I can imagine other people. It’s like, wow.

Maurice Benard: [00:23:56] Well, what’s funny is I used talked to my psychiatrist about what you’re saying because he hadn’t heard about this because I hadn’t talked to him in a while but now I’m talking to him, thank God. And I think I said, look, I did play John Gotti in a movie. It was a hell of an experience. The producer wasn’t a fan of mine and that made my life miserable. But but I got through it and I felt proud that I got through it. Now, not not that long after that, I. I’ve always had this feeling in my gut since I was a kid, since I was little. And it wasn’t a nice feeling. It was an ugly feeling. But I accepted it. And then when I got older, I accepted that I’m bipolar. And that’s why I have this feeling. Well, a couple of months after John Gotti, that feeling that I had for 57 years was gone. And what I realized was I felt joy now for the first time. I’ve been happy, of course, my kids being born and everything. I’m happy, but that real inside joy I haven’t had. And to me, I said to myself, my doctor said, I guess that’s what normal people feel like.

Maurice Benard: [00:25:13] Because I was like it is the greatest feeling in the world that it’s over a year, like maybe a year, three months, year and a half, whatever. And of course, now with the panic attack two weeks ago, it was gone, obviously. But now, as I sit here with you, 95 percent feels good. That’s the joy that I’m talking about. And never really a joy like I’d sit out with the goats. And I just have a tear coming down my face without even thinking about. That’s the kind of. That’s Joy, now to me. I can laugh deeper. Now, if you ask me why it came, he said it could be that what I went through in that movie. I can’t tell you what it is.

Maurice Benard: [00:27:26] Yeah. I mean, you said it better than I could have said it. That’s about as perfect as you can say. I’ll say something on top of that. For me because I still struggle with what you just said. So I’m working on that. But for me, what you have to do, I think and I tell people this is you have to be proud of being mentally ill. You got to be proud of being bipolar or anxiety. You got to be proud of it, because when we come through it, it makes us better. It just makes us better. And. But you have to work and it like you just said in your own thoughts. But I always say, when you when you go through hell, you come through the tunnel of hell, there’s going to be light at the end of the tunnel. But you still got to work on that. So the light can continue. That’s the difference, right?

Maurice Benard: [00:28:24] I mean, look. ‘Cause so many people say I don’t want to be. I feel ashamed. I don’t want. I said, look, if it makes you stronger, it makes you a fighter. You get through what it’s just like anything. Like a sports player. Like a boxer. The toughest fight that he has at the end of it, whether he wins or loses, he’s gonna be better because of it. And I love boxing. That’s why I just made that analogy.

Maurice Benard: [00:29:24] Yes. Yes, absolutely. It’s not impossible. It’s very possible. And you can do it. Don’t say you can’t do it. I know they look. I say I can’t. When I’m in it, I literally can’t say, honey, I can’t do that anymore. But look, you and I are talking right now. This was two weeks ago that I said I couldn’t do it.

Maurice Benard: [00:29:52] And I’m here feeling great.

Maurice Benard: [00:30:25] Yes, you’re absolutely right. That’s what you should do. But I wish I could in those moments. But it’s just sometimes, you it’s yeah. It’s like it’s like I don’t know how to explain in. But, you know, that’s when anybody tells you what you just said is what a psychiatrist would tell you to do. And what I would tell you to do. What I try to be as realistic as I can. But in the moment, it’s so it just seems like it’s it’s so hard. Right. I mean, but you still have to do what needs to be done. So even in that moment, you’re not supposed to run. For instance, running like in that moment, I’ll give you a little example.

Maurice Benard: [00:31:09] In the moment of a panic attack I go on my bed under the covers. And I’m shivering like a leaf and it’s not cold and I’m thinking, what the? And then in my mind I’m thinking I have the coronavirus. And I get under the covers. Now, I should stay under the covers, but I have to get up. And so what happens is all night I get in bed, get out of bed, get in bed, get out of bed, get in bed. Get out of bed. So there is the pattern. No sleep. So what you should do is stay in bed. No matter how hard or how uncomfortable the feeling is, stay in it and fight. Don’t flee. But easier said than done. And I can’t tell you that I did that. But by the third night, I think I did try to. Yeah. Well, we’re getting deep here in this conversation.

Maurice Benard: [00:32:50] And also, let me bring another thing up here. During that two weeks, you got to understand where I was in my life. I had a book coming up that now I couldn’t do. I couldn’t go to New York to do publicity for. I had Corona virus hit me. I had my mom and dad. We had a little bit of a argument and I had my work shut down for four weeks. So it hit me, hit me hard. And that’s when the panic attack start. Now you have to understand some. I thought that there was no publicity for the book. It was over. But HarperCollins is fantastic. And Heidi, the publicist is amazing. And she still got me the publicity, but all virtual.

Maurice Benard: [00:33:37] But little did they know that I was dying of anxiety. Art imitating life. So, but one thing that I have here is where the strength comes in. I don’t care if I’m dying. I will make you think I’m not dying. When it comes to performing, it’s just that my life suffers. But when it comes to doing Dr. Oz, this that, Charlamagne, the God, whatever, I’ll make you think I’m fine. And that’s what I went through for two weeks. And you know what’s funny is the day they call me to tell me I was New York Times bestseller. I was numb. I had no emotions. I don’t think I’ve ever heard any great news feeling like that ever in my life. So I couldn’t. I was just. It was not good. Only until like an hour or so later I walked outside in the sun and I start to cry a little bit. But that was what happened in those two weeks. Well, you got the whole scoop here. You got my whole deal.

Maurice Benard: [00:35:27] No. I’m actually great. You know what’s funny is. And you have to understand something about life, that’s the way life is, man. Life comes to you when it wants to. And why couldn’t the publicity have been right now starting the next two weeks? Well, I’m feeling amazing because that’s not life.

Maurice Benard: [00:35:54] That’s true. But I mean, why did. It’s like life is like I’d say it’s like a roller coaster. You go up. You go down. You just got to deal with when you’re down, get to know how to deal with it. But I’m thinking right now, after this interview is like, damn, let me just take back all those other interviews, because I know they’re not as good as this interview because of the way I was feeling. They’re good. They were decent because I could fake it. But when you’re feeling good, it’s going to be better. But then again, it may not be as authentic. I don’t know. You never know. But what I’m trying to say is life when you want something at a certain time. Life doesn’t want to give it to you.It comes when it comes. So I feel like Deepak Chopra right now.

Maurice Benard: [00:37:12] This is something that I said a long time ago when I was auditioning and I felt that I was great and nobody cared because I didn’t get hired. And I made it. I had my own saying to help me through it, which was deserve everything. Expect nothing. Very well said, yes, just to show so that the time. And then there’s another saying that my dad says is ” Uke va pasaar, va pasaar”  which means what’s going to happen? It’s going to happen. That’s how you live.

Maurice Benard: [00:38:15] It was a fantastic interview. Thank you. I appreciate it.