Joe Tracini talks about his mental health struggles to make his heartbreaking past "worth something".
The ‘Hollyoaks’ actor – who has Emotional Unstable Personality Disorder (also known as BPD) – has been open in the past about his previous substance abuse and battle with mental health, and he broke down in tears as he spoke candidly about why he has decided to speak up.
In a video uploaded to Twitter, Joe said: "I’m doing this because I can’t go back and tell my family that I’m going to be alright. I can’t tell them that.
"I can’t go back and tell me that I’m gonna be alright. And even if I could, I’d have to tell him the worst things he’s ever going to do – he hasn’t done yet.
"The drinks, the drugs were a symptom of a bigger problem, and if I’d found the bigger problem quicker I would’ve hurt less people. So I’m doing it to try and make that worth something."
The 30-year-old actor – known for playing Dennis Savage on the Channel 4 soap – opened up about living with BPD, and compared it to bipolar, "where it does most of the same stuff, just some of it’s a bit s**tter".
Joe has been to rehab three times but is now "almost seven years clean" and has been sober for four years, and he was "blunt" about how it feels supporting someone through such difficult times.
He added: "You’ll know that there comes a point where you have exhausted everything you can think of to try and help them, and it gets to the point where you just have to be there for them and hope that they ask for help before they die. It’s kind of that blunt."
Joe Tracini speaks about mental health to make struggle ‘worth something’
