Bruce Springsteen Reveals Lifelong Mental Health Struggles

Bruce, 69, had his first breakdown at 32. He attributes it partially to his family history of mental illness. As an adult, he learned that his distant, often menacing father Doug was a paranoid schizophrenic.

“I have come close enough to [mental illness] where I know I am not completely well myself,” he told Esquire. “I’ve had to deal with a lot of it over the years, and I’m on a variety of medications that keep me on an even keel; otherwise I can swing rather dramatically and . . . just . . . the wheels can come off a little bit.”

“So we have to watch, in our family. I have to watch my kids, and I’ve been lucky there. It ran in my family going way before my dad,” the songwriter explained.

The “Rosalita” singer also struggled to be a good father and husband because of his dad’s poor example, fighting what he called “the worst of my destructive behavior.” Just thinking about a home filled him “with distrust and a bucketload of grief.” His wife Patti Scialfa and therapy helped him work things out.

But in his early 60s, Bruce fell into an “agitated depression.” The “Thunder Road” singer admitted that he had suicidal thoughts.

“I once got into some sort of box where I couldn’t figure my way out and where the feelings were so overwhelmingly uncomfortable,” the New Jersey native said.

“I had no inner peace whatsoever. And I said, ‘Gee, I really don’t know. I don’t know how long I could . . .’ It was a manic state, and it was just so profoundly emotionally and spiritually and physically uncomfortable that the only thing I’ve ever said was ‘Gee, I don’t know, man . . .’” he explained.

“All I remember was feeling really badly and calling for help. I might have gotten close to that and for brief, brief periods of time,” the “Born In the U.S.A.” singer said. “I had to cop to the fact that I also had things inside me that could lead me to pretty bad places.”

Bruce admitted that his journey to understand himself never ends. “I find myself still struggling just for obvious things that I should’ve had under my belt a long time ago. You know, when I get in those places where I’m not doing so well, I lose track of who I am,” the “Brilliant Disguise” singer confessed.

He credited years in therapy for helping him figure things out. “[I] came [to] the realization, through a lot of studying and analysis, of how rough I’d been on myself and had continued to be until a very late stage in life,” the “I’m On Fire” singer said.