Simon Cowell.Photo:Amy Sussman/Getty
Amy Sussman/Getty
Simon Cowellwishes he didn’t wait so late in life to try mental health therapy for the first time.
“COVID was the real catalyst,” theAmerica’s Got Talentcreator, 63, said in the first episode ofThe Mirror’sMen in Mindpodcast, produced in collaboration with the mental healthMind.
“I’ve suffered from depression over the years… but that was just something I just thought, ‘Well, that’s my character trait. I get down,’ and it’s something you deal with," Cowell later said.
Simon Cowell on ‘America’s Got Talent’.Trae Patton/NBC via Getty
Trae Patton/NBC via Getty
The music mogul described a feeling of being in a constant state of anxiety during theCOVID-19 pandemic.
“In the very, very, very early stages, some friends of mine got really ill [with COVID] and I’m talking about really ill,” he recalled.
”So, I thought, ‘God, if I catch this, maybe the same thing’s going to happen to me, Eric and Lauren,' ” he said, referring to his9-year-old son Ericand fiancéeLauren Silverman.
The constant stream of news only made things worse, with Cowell adding, “I didn’t know what was true or not, I just didn’t have a clue other than I was petrified about catching it. Just petrified.”
While Cowelleventually caught COVIDduring this “nightmare” period, it turned out to be a relatively mild case. However, as the world began to re-open, he started seeking out ways to improve his mental health.
“It gave me a time to reflect on things in a way I never would have done before,” Cowell toldThe Mirror. “And as things started to calm down a bit, and it was almost like now I’ve got to go from there, back into the real world. How do I feel about that? And that’s when this whole notion of — I started to hear a lot more people talking aboutmental health.”
“And that’s when I thought, you know what, I’ve kind of looked after my body, you know, through diet, exercise, whatever, pretty well over the years, but what have I done about my brain and my mind and all that kind of thing? And the answer is nothing. And now’s the time to do it. So it was almost like my head going to the gym,” he explained.Cowellrecalled that when growing up in the U.K. watching American dramas, he noticed how characters would often talk about going to therapy. At the time he felt it was “dramatic” and “over the top,” and admitted that as a British person, he couldn’t relate.
Simon Cowell and fiancée Lauren Silverman.Jeff Spicer/Getty
“I never took [the notion of therapy] seriously if I’m being honest,” Cowell said. “It was only like I said, having gone through something pretty traumatic [in COVID], that I realized, and like I said, having good friends who were very open about it.”
As discussions surrounding mental health became part of day-to-day conversations, the concept of self-reflection started to make sense to Cowell, although at first, he didn’t know where to begin in his search for a therapist, asking friends, “Well, where do I start?”
“And they just said, ‘Well, you’ve got to find someone you clicked with.’ And what if you don’t? ‘Well, then you go to somebody else,’ " Cowell said of the conversations he had with his social circle.
Cowell noted how embarrassed he felt during that first session with a therapist.
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“I sat down really embarrassed and I said, ‘Look I just don’t know where to start,’ " Cowell said of his first therapy session. “And within about 20 minutes it was as if I’d known [the therapist] for 10, 20 years, he’d put me so much at ease, and you realize you’re talking to a professional, and they don’t judge you, they listen to you.”
“He asked me, ‘Do you consider your best work to be the highest-rated thing you’ve ever done?' " Cowell toldThe Mirrorof one particular therapy session. “And I said, ‘No.’ And he said, ‘So why are you judging yourself on that?’ "
“It was just like this massive load lifting off my shoulders,” he admitted. “Now I am happy to talk about it to encourage others too.”
source: people.com
