Another public figure coming forward recently to talk about his struggles with anxiety is actor Colton Haynes. In a feature in Entertainment Weekly, Haynes revealed that he walked away from roles on two popular television shows to prioritize his mental health. Here’s an excerpt, and there’s a link to the full story below. If you’re in northeast Ohio and struggling with anxiety, we hope you’ll consider reaching out.
If you don’t know Colton Haynes by name – and he’d be the first person to bashfully tell you, you probably don’t – you at least know the 27-year-old actor by his familiar Hollywood fable: farm boy turned New York model turned aspiring Los Angeles actor, a paragon of the digital age of the Instagrammable hunk, a slab of innocent Kansas marble sculpted by MTV and polished by The CW.
He’s a teen heartthrob and a fast-rising one at that, thanks to two major roles: His life-changing debut in 2011 as slithering jock Jackson Whittemore on MTV’s runaway hit Teen Wolf, and his series regular gig on The CW’s Arrow as hooded vigilante Arsenal. Both roles made him digital teen royalty, bolstered by Haynes’ decided effort to embrace and interact with fans and his eccentric social media savviness (somewhere to the tune of some 4-million Instagram followers).
So why, then, would a rising prince of teen genre walk away from two red-hot TV gigs – arguably at their own peaks, and on the cusp of his own – and all but abdicate the throne?
“I asked to step away because I cared more about my mental and physical health than my career at the time,” the actor tells EW, opening up about his personal and professional life for the first time in quite some time. “I’ve had terminal anxiety my entire life. Physically ill, fainting. I’m 27 years old, and I have an ulcer. I had to step back.” Clinical anxiety and public pressure are a potent mix, but their effects may be worse for someone like Haynes – a gentle spirit in a threatening (or so he’s been told by many a casting director) build, someone who lost control of his own personal narrative somewhere along the way between Kansas and California.