Gary Tank Commander actor Greg McHugh opens up on anxiety battle
The 37-year-old writer and actor said he “hit a huge wall” after finishing a live tour of the show.
He recounted the experience at an event on young people’s mental health, telling the audience: “I am still subject to loads of the insecurities that everyone in this room will have, it’s just I’ve been trained to mask it a bit more.
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Hide Ad“At the root of a lot of mental health, I think, is this Scottish background, especially the male psyche of hiding that, so I can assure you I have a lot of ups and downs.
“I might be talking loudly but I definitely have my moments.”
McHugh, speaking at the Scottish Parliament’s festival of politics, said mental health problems were reaching an “epidemic” level.
He said: “I think it is something we don’t talk about enough.
“We are in a generation now where images are inescapable. We are an incredibly exposed society now.
“I was asked to come here about seven months ago, I had just done a show at Glasgow at the Hydro, 10,000 people a night I played to, the show went very, very well and after the show, I’ll be quite honest, I hit a huge wall.
“I didn’t understand why and I started to suffer from anxiety and nothing really made sense.”
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Hide AdMr McHugh added: “I’m an actor, I’m a writer and I’ve done relatively well, but I wanted to come here to say to you no-one is immune to these feelings.
“Even though the show had gone well, why did I feel like that? Why did I feel anxious? Why could I not sit in a coffee shop with my wife and my two kids? I could not work it out.
“I think I had been caught in a cycle. Whether you are 37 and a actor or 14 and at school, there is this being exposed to so many things at a constant level that I just got too caught up in everything.
“I got too caught up in my work, predominantly too caught up in my work, and I had no space at all and when I hit this wall I went to see someone, this therapist who was very good and who explained that when we build ourselves up to work on a fight or flight level, I had been working at such a level for such a long time that when I stopped after that final show my brain didn’t know what to do, it just absorbed so much.
“In my case, I think I hit that wall because I had put such expectation on myself, I felt I hadn’t properly achieved it and my brain hadn’t worked out to cope with all that pressure.”
The Edinburgh-born comedy actor is the creator, writer and star of the BBC1 comedy series Gary: Tank Commander. The programme first aired on 29 October 2012.
The actor continued: “I am able to come here and speak very confidently to you about things, and I can project that impression, but it’s because technically I’ve been trained to do that and I’m used to speaking in public.
“But underneath that, I still have all the frailties, all the insecurities.
“I work in a job where I am made redundant every few months and I am back in the market, trying to get another job.”