Jesse Eisenberg could never relax at school because of his anxiety.
The 35-year-old actor was never bullied by his classmates but found it impossible to fully relax as he was always "prepared for battle" and convinced something bad would happen.
Speaking during an Advertising Week fireside chat with Dr. Harold S. Koplewicz, the president of the Child Mind Institute, he said: "I kept one tissue for crying and one for bleeding. I was prepared for battle, but nothing ever happened, which was almost worse."
The ‘Zombieland: Double Tap’ actor learned to manage his condition after a creative arts school introduced him to acting.
He explained: "Acting is a very visceral experience. It is a cathartic way to have an emotional experience that is safe and contextualised.
"[It’s] different from real-life experiences when I ran out of middle school hysterically crying due to my anxiety…
"If 12-year-old me was able to see something like this, it would show me that life ebbs and flows. It helps destigmatise something that is incorrectly stigmatised."
And Jesse admitted he is still gripped with feelings of anxiety.
Asked if it’s still something he deals with, he replied: "Just in the morning, afternoon and evening."
But the ‘Social Network’ star is doing his best not to make his three-year-old son Banner – who he has with wife Anna Strout – "neurotic" by passing his own worries onto him.
He said: "To me, there’s nothing better for one’s mental health than to worry about things that are real, and when you have a child, you can only worry about something that’s real.
"I resist all of the temptations I have to make [my son] neurotic because I know it’s not helpful. I know that what might feel good in the moment of consoling a kid who appears nervous may be detrimental in the long term."
Jesse Eisenberg’s anxiety struggle
