Survival expert Bear Grylls has revealed he turned to therapy when life “hit him hard”, and he said it “really helped” him get back on track.
The ‘Man vs. Wild’ survival expert and former SAS serviceman admitted despite his hard man exterior, he has an emotional side and he sought counselling during a particularly tough time which involved the deaths of both his and his wife Shara’s fathers.
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Asked if he’s ever sought psychological help, he told The Times newspaper:
“Yes I have. I saw a therapist for a while, but it was nothing to do with the army. It was just life hitting me hard.
Shara and I married in 2000. I didn’t really have a job – and that was a worry – and then her father died. Twelve weeks later my father died. We were living on this rusty barge on the Thames and the boiler was broken. I really felt overwhelmed. I couldn’t talk to Shara because I felt I had to be strong for her.
My feeling was, ‘Bear, you’ve been very lucky through childhood, but now life has taken the gloves off. You’ve got no job, your wife is in a bad way, you’re in a bad way, what are you going to do?’ “
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But Bear insists the difficult times have helped his marriage, and he has urged his fans to realise that no man is without “doubts or fears”.
He said:
“I went to see this very good therapist and it really helped. For a young couple a shared crisis can really make or break you. It certainly made us. And whatever you see on TV, no man doesn’t have doubts or fears. No man ever has everything totally sorted.”
The ‘Running Wild’ star spends six weeks of the year on his private island St. Tudwal’s West – just off the Welsh coast – with wife Shara and their sons Jesse, 16, Marmaduke, 13, and 10-year-old Huckleberry, and he enjoys the fact he and his family can escape the pressures of the modern world when they are staying there.
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He explained:
“Sometimes Shara and I look on Instagram and see famous people on Necker [Island] or sipping cocktails in the sun by an azure sea. Here we are often trapped by wind and rain or sea conditions. But we still turn to each other and say, ‘I love it here.’ “