Kit Harrington recently opened up regarding his struggle with mental health during and after Game of Thrones, stemming from “pretty traumatic” events. Harrington spoke about the struggle of going sober afterward in an interview with The Times.
“You get to a place where you feel like you are a bad person, you feel like you are a shameful person. And you feel that there’s no way out, that’s just who you are,” he explained. “And getting sober is the process of going, ‘No, I can change.’ One of my favorite things I learnt recently is that the expression ‘a leopard doesn’t change its spots’ is completely false: that a leopard actually does change its spots.”
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He continued: “I just think that’s the most beautiful thing. It really helped. That was something I kind of clung to; the idea that I could make this huge fundamental change in who I was and how I went about my life.”
He went on to explain that he’s suffered from depression in the past and has even felt suicidal before.
“I went through periods of real depression where I wanted to do all sorts of things…maybe [speaking about this will] help someone, somewhere,” he added. “But I definitely don’t want to be seen as a martyr or special. I’ve been through something, it’s my stuff. If it helps someone, that’s good.”
Harrington took a one-year break from acting after the finale of Game of Thrones.
[Via]