Corey Taylor , vocalist of the band Slipknot , revealed details of his mental health in an interview with the YouTube channel The Void with Christina , given in December 2023 during the Good Things in Australia, but only recently released on video.
The vocalist highlighted the importance of staying open and talking about his personal struggle (transcribed via Blabbermouth.Net ): “It’s interesting. I’ve always been very frank about everything and never realized it was a stigma to talk about these issues, to be honest. It was a line you didn’t really cross or admit to, especially someone in my profession or something like that. There were also people who kind of used it as a trendy topic, never eloquently or very openly. So when I started opening up, the response was extraordinary.”
Taylor shared how others were inspired by his stance, and that helped him even more: “People just said, ‘You gave me the courage to open up about this on my own and talk to people I care about what was affecting me.’ I felt like, yeah, I was being very open with the press and stuff, but I wasn’t really able to do the same with them, to expose what was affecting me. And the second I took the risk, it became a huge game-changer. So, really, in a weird way, the fans helped me be even more open. It was almost this kind of cyclical vibe that I wasn’t expecting.”
Living with the disease
Corey also spoke about what it has been like dealing with bipolar disorder and the lack of knowledge people have about the illness:
“The most important thing that people don’t understand is the loss of feeling that comes with it, especially when the physical side hits you and it becomes that arduous, almost impossible task of just being alive or being human. It’s something that simply can’t be described unless you’ve been through it too.”
Corey continues: “And obviously, there are people who have had bouts of depression but don’t have the physical symptoms, the bipolar disorder. Once the emptiness hits, then they can empathize in a strange way. But it’s really hard to try to make them see why it’s so difficult to just get over it. It’s almost like replacing your body with the body of a mannequin and having to be very plastic, and everything is so deliberate and everything is so heavy… I call it trying to run underwater. So I think that’s the hardest thing, to really get people to understand and empathize.”
Depression is an illness that Corey has been battling throughout his 50s. The illness even led Corey to attempt suicide in his youth.
Check out the full interview:
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