Big Bill On How Diamond Dallas Page Helped Him, Sharing His Recovery Journey To Help Others

On a recent episode of AEW Unrestricted, Big Bill spoke about his recovery journey over the past few years. The former W. Morrissey credits DDP for both helping him, and inspiring him to share his journey to help others. Read on for highlights:

On what motivated him to be open about his mental health journey and recovery: “Dallas — sorry, DDP, Diamond Dallas Page — he is the one that pushed me in the direction of being open about it. It’s something that you want to hide, especially in sports or wrestling. It’s very ‘alpha’ mentality, you have to be tough. Those are things you don’t want to admit to anybody, especially to your peers and the public. I don’t think that’s very healthy. I understand the mindset, because I was in it; to kind of keep that stuff to yourself. But it’s extremely unhealthy to do that. It’s always best to speak up. Dallas told me to maybe tell my story, because even if it helps just one person… Why did I go through all this suffering or there to be no one to benefit?”

On using what he went through to help others: “That’s kind of how I look at it now. I went through everything that I went through, and if I was to not share my story and not help anybody else, then what was it all for? It was all for naught. Just a lot of suffering without a payoff, without a positive in the end. So I look at as… The positive of it is me helping other people by sharing my story, giving them advice, helping them through it. That at least makes me feel like everything I went through was at least worth something.”

On being honest and open with the public: “So being open about it was incredibly important to me. Like I said in sports, especially, you want to ‘keep things to yourself.’ That kind of set in motion for me of this attitude going forward of just being very honest. There’s a lot of times when you’re in the public eye, there’s a lot of temptation to be dishonest, or to not be entirely truthful with the fans. I think that was a catalyst for me where I started just being very honest. It feels very liberating to be open and honest about everything.”

On how Diamond Dallas Page helped him and continues to help others: “He’s helped so many, so many people. He continues to help people. There’s a lot of people that you don’t see that he’s constantly helping. Guy’s doing the lord’s work, as some people say. He’s been a big part of my journey and obviously, I met [fiancee] Lexy [Nair] through him. So that’s a huge positive, too.”

If using any of the above quotations, please credit AEW Unrestricted h/t 411mania for the transcription.