Big Sean Opens Up About Therapy and Mental Health in Empowering Message

The 31-year-old star addressed his personal troubles in a series of social media messages.

By Samantha Schnurr Mar 25, 2019 8:22 PMTags
Big Sean, 2018 Grammy Awards, Red Carpet FashionsStephen Lovekin/Variety/REX/Shutterstock

Big Sean is celebrating his birthday with his personal journey in mind. 

The five-time Grammy-nominated performer took to social media on the day he turned 31 years old to address some personal struggles he had kept private.  

"I'm definitely seeing things different than how I used to see them," he began. The star explained that around this time last year, "I wasn't feeling like myself and I couldn't figure out why."

Big Sean continued, "I stepped back from everything I was doing…because somewhere in the middle of it, I just felt lost and I don't know how I got there."

He noted that he had meditated in the past to handle anxiety and depression, but it was not "doing it all the way" for what he was feeling. "I knew this required some special attention," the rapper said.  

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Celebrity Birthday Bashes

As a result, the star began therapy. "I got a good therapist. I was blessed enough to talk to some super spiritual people. They made me realize one thing I was missing in my life, and the one thing I was missing was clarity," he said.

"I needed clarity. Clarity about who was around me, what I was doing." He went on to explain how music began to feel like a burden and the relationships in his life were toxic or struggling, like the one he had with his mother. He acknowledged that he need to nurture the relationship he had with himself in order to fix the others. 

"I started realizing that you can't give or depend on somebody for love or a good time and all that if you can't give it to yourself. I started doing things by myself or just doing things I never thought I'd do, like going skydiving or just whatever I thought was fun, just doing it," the star said, later noting that he has since gotten back into music. Sean has not released an album since 2017. 

"In the midst of that, I definitely rediscovered myself and found a whole new energy, and me being a source of it and not somebody else."