Chrissy Metz Says Therapy Helped Her Overcome Childhood Trauma That 'Plagued' Her

Chrissy Metz is getting candid about the ways therapy has helped her during challenging times in her life.

In a new interview for Verywell Mind's cover story, the This Is Us star, 41, opened up about her overcoming trauma through therapy. After suffering from a harrowing panic attack on her 30th birthday, the actress said she realized her need to address the childhood trauma that was impacting her mental and physical health.

"I wasn't doing what I knew I needed to do to get to that other place in my life," Metz told the outlet. "I needed to understand why I've been hurting my body with food, and all the things that come with that, which means all the past trauma, all my parents' unresolved issues, all of that came bubbling to the surface at 30 years old."

"I mean if we're not our parents' unresolved issues, we are just our own unresolved issues," she said. "They will plague us until we've faced them head on, and we're like, 'Oh.' The only way to go is through, and that's a really hard concept because we don't like to be uncomfortable. It is so uncomfortable to be uncomfortable."

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For Metz, she said she's "grateful" to have access to mental healthcare because she often turns to her therapist in those moments.

The actress noted having conversations with an expert has helped her progress and she's even learned new coping mechanisms that work for her mental health, like journaling.

"I also do a thing called journal speak, which is literally getting out anything and everything that you feel," she explained during the interview. "Sometimes I just do it on a computer so I can erase it, because I never keep it, because our feelings, I don't always believe, are facts, but they're definitely needing to be removed, excavated. So then we can get down to the core issue, like what's really going on. So that's been very helpful."

"Also, this whole point, I believe, of this plan of existence is to evolve," Metz added. "And so, I want to be better tomorrow than I was today and have grace around all of that, because it won't be perfect, it won't be linear, but it will be worth it."

Metz added that because of her personal experience, she's glad her show This Is Us, where she portrays Kate, touches on issues of mental health.

"For me, once you educate somebody, even if it's in a roundabout way on a TV show or a conversation ... the fear goes away, and the shame or the guilt goes away, and that is so important in the journey of health as far as contending with your own mental health," she said. "I think [This Is Us] is helping ... even in ways that we probably don't even recognize now."