Miami Anchor Talks About His Mental Illness
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WPLG (Miami) Sports Anchor or Clay Ferraro got very personal on the newscast talking about his battle with mental illness.
"I was diagnosed when I was really young. It manifests itself the most with obsessive compulsive disorder, also known as OCD," Ferraro said.
He sometimes took medication and underwent therapy.
He said he still struggled in school but pushed through, did well in college and eventually found success in the TV business.
Ferraro anchored both sports and news in Fort Myers. That's where he met his now-wife, Kristen.
He hoped his illness was something he could manage. "I told her that I was over this because I felt as though I was," Ferraro said.
But Ferraro wasn't "over it," and said he sometimes struggled during his drive home from work at night. "For whatever reason, it manifested itself in a terrible fear when I drove," he said.
One afternoon, things took a turn on a drive to church.
"I just froze. I couldn't move," he remembered. "I put the car in park. (Kristen's) sitting in the passenger seat, and I just started crying. I literally could not move."
The next day, Ferraro saw his doctor and called Kristen at her job at a local school. He told her he needed to go to a hospital.
"I remember getting home and he was beside himself," Kristen said. "And he's like, 'I don't know what to do. We need to get in the car. I need you to drive. I can't live one more day like this.'"
Ferraro was checked into an institution for three days and monitored around the clock. He said it wasn't easy and was sometimes scary.
But it's what sparked him to realize that focusing on his mental health was not something he could do alone.
"He didn't know what that meant for his life. He didn't know what it meant for our life. But he knew it was so bad that we had to go to this hospital and get checked in," Kristen said.
"Getting help is the ultimate sign of strength," Ferraro said.
He said he sometimes had thoughts of suicide but believes that was his illness talking.
"Even if you are sitting there, thinking that nobody loves you and nobody can help you, there are a bunch of people who want you to get better," he insists. "This is my fight. I will fight this every day."
H/T WPLG
