Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz Opens Up About Anxiety For Mental Health Campaign

23. May 2019 Ashley Perez Hollingsworth

Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz speaks about his struggles with anxiety in a new video for the Child Mind Institute’s 2019 #MyYoungerSelf social media campaign.

In his clip, Wentz spoke about the normalcy of cycling through emotional “ups and downs” and spoke about “de-stigmatizing” conversations about mental health.

“It’s super normal … to be unsure of yourself and feel lonely,” he said. “One of the things I would have told myself 10 years ago or 20 years ago is that it’s alright to feel that anxiety and it’s alright to feel down, but you’ve gotta know that tomorrow might have a different feeling. I think you’re not really alone because people are all feeling that — feeling great and feeling terrible.”

He continues “Life is a journey, and I think it’s important not to just slap a smile on your face when you’re feeling down … It’s also important to know that you can reach out to people. Sometimes you start feeling like, ‘Ah, I’m feeling down, and I’ll just keep it to myself.’ I think it’s important to reach out to your friends. And if you notice one of your friends feeling down and it’s something you can’t handle yourself, you should reach out to someone who can help them.”

Watch his video below.

Weezer’s Scott Shriner and songwriter/producer Butch Walker, Sugar Ray Leonard, Ray Romano, Kevin Love, Gillian Anderson, Bo Burnham and Imagine Dragons’ Dan Reynolds have also participated in the third-annual #MyYoungerSelf campaign, which aims to end the stigma surrounding mental health and learning disorders. Each day in May, in conjunction with National Mental Health Awareness Month, the CMI will feature a new celebrity cell phone video and childhood photo on its social media channels. Learn more about it here.