Former Bellator Featherweight Champion Pat Curran had a different kind of battle to overcome after he lost his Championship, that was a battle with depression and anxiety. It sounds like such a strange thing, for a professional fighter, a guy who beats people up for a living, to suffer from depression and anxiety. The thing is, both can be crippling and affect people in all walks of life, even cage fighters. Pat Curran spoke with MMAFighting about his struggles with depression and anxiety.
I gotta say, after reading this, I actually care about watching Pat Curran fight, so, bravo. [source]
“More than the fight in general, it was my personal life leading up to the fight, which I was able to take care of and get sorted out,” he told MMA Fighting. “To sum it, I suffer from severe depression and anxiety issues. I’ve been dealing with this for a long time, but I was recently able to find this out what it was and address it. I’ve been seeing a doctor, and I got the right medication. And since I sought help and took the steps to change that, I’ve become a new person. I’ve completely changed my world, and I’m feeling great right now.”
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“It really put me in a dark hole,” he says. “I was depressed before then, but that just put me at an all-time low. I was ready to pack up my stuff in Illinois and move back in with my parents and search for a new career. I was ready to give up everything. Even well before that fight I had that same mentality. Not having fun…just wishing I wasn’t doing this anymore…feeling like I just don’t want to be a fighter anymore.
“I remember saying that to a couple of my friends, and they would say, ‘why are you telling me this? You should be wanting to kill this guy right now, what’s wrong with you?’ But that was just my mindset going into that fight. It just really came down to anxiety and depression. It was really affecting my life.”